


Lost in Purgatory

by lisbei



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: AU, Complete, F/M, Felicity trapped on Lian Yu, Protective Oliver, Season 4 flashback spoilers, Slow Burn, Smut, Sorry it took so long, finally right?, finally they kiss, they meet on the island
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 02:44:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 44,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5440553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisbei/pseuds/lisbei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Felicity travels to Hong Kong for a job interview, she never expects to end up on an uncharted island in the North China Sea, harvesting drugs for brutal mercenaries. She and Oliver Queen have never met, until he joins the guys holding guns on her and the rest of the slave workers. </p><p>But what will happen when her situation changes from bad to worse?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, apparently I couldn't resist starting yet another different first meeting AU, this time starting on the island. One day, I will write something else. That is not this day!
> 
> People have been saying that the Season 4 flashbacks are dull, and they kind of are. But I see some potential there, and have been gleefully rubbing my hands over every island scene.

Felicity pulled the life jacket on with an ever increasing sense of disbelief. How could this be happening? She’d just been flown out to Hong Kong for a job interview, which had gone _so_ well! Her head was still full of the amazing future that could be hers if she was chosen for the job. And now she was on the way home. Except the captain’s words were still ringing in her ears - the plane was going down. Fine, so the words 'emergency landing' had been used, but what were they landing on?

Felicity instinctively looked out of the window. It was a bright sunny day, and all she could see was water. Well, yeah, Felicity. Ergo, life jackets. One thought would not be suppressed: how the hell could they land here? She tried to follow the instructions she could hear being yelled across the aisle, but it was difficult, through the other passengers’ loudly expressed panic. She secured the life-jacket with clumsy fingers, fighting her disbelief and denial. This was just a misunderstanding. These things didn’t happen, not to her. 

The sound of a tone from the cabin speakers snapped her out of the trance, and she relaxed, relieved. She was sure the message was going to be reassuring, the emergency over, a mistake. She’d never been so wrong.

“This is the captain. Brace for impact.”

As though the captain’s words had flicked a switch in his crew, the flight attendants started yelling.

“Heads down! Brace! Brace! Brace!”

Felicity quickly folded over and wrapped her arms under her seat as far as she could, thankful that she'd watched the in-flight instruction video on the flight to Hong Kong. As the next few seconds passed, the feeling of unreality heightened, like a vivid nightmare – only she had the sneaking suspicion that she wasn’t going to wake up from this one. The whining sound of the engines grew louder and louder, turning into a scream. Felicity felt like she was losing her mind as the sound drowned out the flight attendants, who were still yelling ‘Brace!’ at the top of their voices, some passengers who were screaming, and the children (oh, the children, she thought later, filled with horror) crying. The plane hit the water with a jarring crash she felt in her bones. Then she knew no more.

When she came to, she was on the surface of the water, still strapped into her row. The seats on either side of her had been empty, and it was ironic how much she regretted something that she'd been happy about when she boarded the plane. Logically, she knew she’d only been out for a few seconds. She was so completely disoriented, it could have been days. 

She looked around her, dazed, and couldn’t believe how sharp everything looked, how clear and distinct each wave seemed. She raised her hand to her face and realised her glasses were still on. The idea was ludicrous. The whole plane was gone. Everyone except her was . . . gone. But her glasses were _fine_. 

A giggle escaped her mouth, and she clapped a hand over it. She couldn’t. She couldn’t lose it now. She was alone in the middle of an ocean, and she had to hold it together. 

She inflated her life jacket quickly, and when she realised her row was sinking, and pulling her down with it, she unbuckled her seat-belt. She looked around her again, her horror increasing. Where was the plane? Here and there she could see some debris floating around, only to sink, as though trying to escape her gaze. The seat which had been under her did the same, and she tried to swim away from it, but she wasn’t sure which direction to pick. 

The first time she glimpsed something brightly coloured, and thought it might be a life raft, or another survivor, it turned out to be the body of a woman in a flowered dress. When she swam away, trying to control her dry heaves, she spotted one of the emergency slides and headed towards it. When she reached it, she was already exhausted, and could barely hold on. Just as she was on the verge of letting go, a hand clamped onto her arm, and dragged her out of the water. 

Her relief at finding another survivor was short lived, though. She was face to face with one of the male flight attendants, but he looked badly hurt, his white shirt soaked with blood. He seemed to have used the last of his strength to pull her up, and quickly lost consciousness.

As the day went by, and the sun slowly sank into the sea (or the ocean, she had no idea where they were), Felicity tried to list what she knew. She had no food or water. She had a light, attached to the life jacket, and a whistle, but the only way that would help was if there were boats around. Or rescue helicopters. But all that she could see around her was darkness, and above her the sky was lit by a beautiful moon and millions of uncaring stars. The flight attendant was still unconscious, his breaths getting harsher by the minute. She’d never felt so alone.

The sunrise brought hope, or at least, land. They must have moved quite a distance during the night. To be honest, Felicity thought, the island looked strange and forbidding, all jagged edges and towering cliffs. And at first she was afraid that the current would take them past it, or dash them to pieces on the rocks. But the swells weren’t strong that morning, and she managed to paddle along, directing the life raft towards a small inlet she spotted. Once they were inside, away from the open sea, she dared to jump out, and suppressed a shout of joy when she realised she could stand upright. There were pebbles under her feet, and she was seized by a moment of euphoria. This was land! Land meant people! And water. Oh God, she was so thirsty. Just a bit more effort, she thought, as she pulled the life raft ashore, and collapsed on the mix of pebbles and sand that covered the shoreline. She knew she should get up, try to find people, something. But just the effort of getting to shore had been so exhausting, her eye-lids felt like they were weighed down. Just a few seconds, she promised herself. Then she’d get up.

When she woke up, the sun was warm on her face. She blinked a couple of times, unsure where she was, and it took a few seconds for her to remember the last day – the plane crash, the life raft, the island. Her clothes felt dry, so she must have been asleep for a few hours. But what had woken her up? Just then, a shadow blocked out the sun above her, and, as she slowly raised her eyes, she realised that there was somebody else on the beach. She started up with a gasp. The man was standing with the sun behind him, so she had to shade her eyes to get an idea of what he looked like, and it was only a vague idea at first – close cropped hair, beard, fatigues, heavy machine gun cradled against his chest. Even as her mind started cheering and burbling about rescue, some details started clamouring for attention. Like the way his finger was resting on the trigger of his scary looking gun. Or the way he was looking at her, speculatively, with a slightly unpleasant smile.

“Well, hello, darlin’. Where’d you come from?”

Huh. He was American. She was still feeling disoriented enough to try to explain herself.

“Yesterday – I was on a plane. We went down . . . somewhere . . . “

She waved distractedly out to sea, and was struck by a dizzying feeling of vertigo. Had she really been on a plane? What was she doing on this island? And who was this guy? The smirk never dropped off his face.

“Is that right? We saw that bird go down, yesterday. Didn’t look like anyone survived that.”

For the first time in her life, Felicity didn’t blurt out the first thing that came to mind. Maybe she was still in shock, or light-headed because she was dehydrated. But she didn’t ask him why no-one had sent a rescue party to check for survivors, or offer to show him her boarding pass, which, oh wait, was at the bottom of the ocean, along with a hundred passengers and crew. Though even her sudden inexplicable terror and suspicion couldn’t stop her from pointing to the life-raft which she’d dragged to shore.

“There’s someone else – one of the crew. But I think he’s hurt pretty bad-“

She turned to where she’d left the life-raft, and there was another fatigues-wearing man staring at it, pointing his gun at the only other survivor of the crash. Two gunshots rang out and she jumped. She clapped her hand over her mouth, desperate to stop the screams which were building up in her. They’d killed him. And she was next. She stared at the bearded man, eyes filled with tears, and he gave her a leer.

“Oh, honey, he was never gonna make it. But don’t worry, stick by me and I’ll take care of you.”

Felicity's horror was gradually becoming anger. Who did this asshole think he was? He's the guy with the gun, Felicity, a terrified part of her mind whimpered. Thankfully, a new voice interrupted her before she could say something she'd no doubt regret later.

“Conklin!”

The abrupt bark caused an impressive change in the man’s expression. They both looked to their left, and Felicity felt a tiny spark of hope grow inside her, as striding towards them, came the man who gave the orders, judging by the way Conklin practically stood at attention, now. 

As soon as the boss-man was face to face, the spark of hope was extinguished. Her nausea and terror were replaced with a sensation that could only be described as a frozen kind of fear, like she’d been encased in carbonite. The two guys who’d found her on the beach were just thugs. This man was the real thing. As she stared into his eyes, she had an insane rambling memory of being terrified by the thought of sharks attacking them, as they floated along on the life-raft. But the real shark was here all along, she thought – his eyes seemed dead, expressionless. The twitch didn’t help, either. He was talking to her, and she had to make an effort to understand what he was saying.

“My name is Reiter. You need to come with us.”

Conklin kept a hand on her arm the entire time they walked towards the camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't ask me how Felicity survived the plane crash. 
> 
> I'm trying with shorter chapters with this story - maybe my updates will be quicker that way.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the great response! I'm so grateful for comments and kudos!
> 
>  
> 
> So, I changed Taiana's name to Tatiana, in case anyone's puzzled.

The walk towards their camp seemed to take forever, and Felicity thanked whatever deity was on her side right now that she’d kept her running shoes on when the plane had dropped from the sky, so at least her feet were intact when they arrived. Conklin pushed her towards a woman using some sort of tool in a field, harvesting a flower that was so brightly coloured, it had to have hallucinogenic properties. There were other people doing the same thing. None of them looked up when her group arrived. She guessed they knew better. She was just wondering what to do now, and desperately wanting to shake off Conklin’s hand on her arm, when he spoke to the woman.

“Hey, Tatiana! We found you a friend! You need to tell her what’s what.”

Felicity found herself looking into the face of a brunette in her twenties, with a tired look on her face. She shook her head, and looked even sadder when she saw Felicity’s probably bewildered expression.

“Why did you come here? This is a bad place.”

Some minutes later, Felicity and Tatiana were sitting next to each other on the ground, near some trees which provided a bit of shade. Tatiana had explained, in her heavy East European accent, that they were allowed half an hour to eat, and then it was back to work, which was apparently harvesting some drug Reiter was interested in. Great, Felicity thought. Drug runners. And she was slave labour. Felicity sighed.

“Yesterday . . . I was on a plane. It crashed.”

Her voice shook, slightly, though she tried to keep it steady. No, Felicity, she told herself sternly. PTSD will have to wait.

Tatiana’s eyes widened.

“We saw it! Reiter’s men said that no-one could have survived that crash.”

Felicity shrugged.

“I don’t know how I made it. Just luck, I guess.”

She nibbled at the bread she’d been given, and took a cautious sip of water. Tatiana had insisted she eat and drink very slowly, and she was already feeling queasy after a tiny bit of food.

“I was a dive instructor on a yacht,” Tatiana murmured. “Vlad was a deck hand. They killed everyone else and kidnapped us.”

Felicity looked at her, questioning.

“He is my brother,” Tatiana added. “We take care of each other.” She looked around her, but none of Reiter’s men was close by. “You must be careful – Conklin was looking at you in a way that is . . . not good. Usually, Reiter does not allow that kind of . . . abuse. He says it is bad for morale,” she added, her voice dripping scorn.

“But,” Felicity continued, sensing that was where Tatiana was headed.

“But. Conklin is a man who takes what he wants, and deals with the consequences afterwards. And I have never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you.”

Felicity nodded. He’d looked at her like he was starving, and she was a meal. She’d have to keep her head down, and maybe there’d be a way out of this nightmare. Though she couldn’t see it right now. Tatiana quickly explained the whole harvesting procedure, which didn’t seem difficult, as well as the rules, which were also straightforward. Don’t steal, don’t run. She bet screaming in despair was forbidden too. When it got dark, they were herded into small wooden huts she hadn’t seen when she arrived. The women were separated from the men, and Felicity and Tatiana shared a hut with two Asian women who didn’t speak English – or at least, didn’t speak to them. Felicity had been given a blanket to drape on the ground, and she put hers next to Tatiana. When she started crying, that night, Tatiana put an arm around her and shushed her, and hummed what sounded like a lullaby in her ear. Felicity was glad of the comfort, and, in spite of herself, she managed to sleep that night.

They got up at first light, and Tatiana showed her where they could wash and . . . use the bathroom, so to speak. She managed to get her a cap to wear, and Felicity had been wearing a long-sleeved shirt on the plane, so her arms were protected. And that was it. The work was monotonous and tiring, and when they paused for lunch she thought her back was going to break in half. She was just about to stretch when she felt a prickle at the back of her neck, and when she looked up, Tatiana was looking at her, a sad expression in her eyes. She was careful to keep her voice at a murmur.

“Is he looking at me?”

Tatiana nodded. Felicity went back to work, ignoring the crick in her neck and the stiffness in her back. She only looked up when a shadow fell over her, feeling that ignoring him would make things worse.

“Can I get you anything, darlin’?”

She wanted to yell, to scream that she wasn’t his darling, that he should just leave her alone. But every time the impulse came to mind, a voice in her head stopped her. She wasn’t sure if it was her mother’s voice she heard, but it always said the same thing: _Be. Quiet_. She was careful not to smile, not to encourage him, either. She just looked up, quickly, and shook her head. He crouched down next her, making sure no-one else could hear him.

“You should be nice to me, honey. Lots of things can happen here. Always good to have a man to protect you.”

But who do I get to protect me from _you_ , she wanted to scream. She’d talked with Tatiana about going to Reiter, but she shook her head.

“Conklin is more important to him than you, Felicity. If they think you’re causing trouble, you’ll just disappear.”

The next few days passed without incident. She could still feel him watching her, but he didn’t talk to her again. Harvesting the drugs Reiter was after was the kind of slow and samey work that sent her into a trance, almost, and she was frequently surprised when the sun went down and the day was over. She often thought afterwards that she’d been lulled into a sense of safety on purpose. One morning, she opened her eyes, only to find that her surroundings were blurred and fuzzy-looking. Touching her face, she realised she wasn’t wearing her glasses, even though she never took them off to sleep anymore. She sat up and looked around her, spotting them instantly – or rather, what was left of them. They’d been smashed to pieces, most probably by a heavy boot, just like the ones on Conklin, who had approached without her hearing him. She ignored him, staring at the remains of her glasses, turning them over and over in her hands.

“Need a hand?”

He sounded sardonic. She was trying to control the chills travelling up and down her spine. How had he taken them off her without waking her up? She gritted her teeth, determined to shake it off, somehow. She’d been sitting cross-legged, and managed to stand up that way, something that would have impressed her high school gym teacher. Conklin grinned even wider, and put a hand on her arm, mouth opening to say something gross, no doubt. She shook him off her. She’d had enough of the quiet approach.

“Don’t touch me!”

She stalked off, not without squinting furiously at the ground in front of her, fighting off the tears at how helpless she felt without her glasses. She wasn’t fast enough to be out of earshot when he replied, though.

“No matter, hon. I like a girl with spirit!”

That was enough to enrage her again. She wanted to throw herself at him, to spit at him, to scratch his face. She did none of those things, and managed to get to Tatiana without stumbling. Well, not much, anyway. The woman gave her a puzzled look, pointing to her eyes, and Felicity shook her head. Tatiana’s face hardened, and she took one step towards where Conklin was doing his version of patrolling, which was really just leering at Felicity and doing everything but smacking his lips at her. Felicity put a hand on her arm, stopping her.

“You can’t do anything. I don’t want you to get into trouble for my sake.”

Tatiana’s face fell, but she nodded. Felicity continued, faking a lightness she wasn’t feeling.

“I’ll just keep ignoring him. He’s got to get tired of this sometime.”

Felicity couldn’t hold back a sigh, though, when she realised she’d have to do the weeding by hand, and on her knees. She was basically blind without her glasses, and if she stayed on her feet everything was just one green blur – she’d be destroying plants instead of weeds. She’d just settled down to work when there was a commotion next to Reiter’s hut. All she could see was some blurry movement, and Tatiana murmured that Reiter’s men had found some guy on the island - said he was a castaway. Felicity shrugged, and kept stripping the plants. Whoever it was, they’d soon learn. Or die in the process.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that's Oliver who arrives at the end of the chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading this story - I appreciate every response!

Felicity couldn’t believe it! She couldn’t fucking believe it! Here she was, on her knees, cutting plants and stripping off flowers, and asshole rich guy castaway was striding around in fatigues, with a gun, giving orders. And why the hell was she on her knees? Because without her glasses she couldn’t see which fucking part of the fucking plant she was supposed to fucking cut. Whoa. Chill out, Felicity. She took a few deep breaths to calm down, conscious that the way she was right now, she was liable to blow up at the wrong person.

Tatiana was still muttering about the latest addition to the thug squad, frat boy division. Apparently he was some lost billionaire, who’d been stranded here for three years. Yeah, right. Sure. And she’d never heard of the guy, but she hadn’t been into TMZ that much, back when . . . back when she was younger. Damn, now there were tears in her eyes. Stupid pollen. The other people around her were dropping tools for lunch, and she surreptitiously wiped her eyes and got up, intent on getting away before anyone noticed she’d been crying. There’s no crying in drug harvesting, she was thinking to herself, just as she turned and walked straight into a broad chest, almost breaking her nose on the assault rifle hanging across it. Two huge arms steadied her as she bounced off him, and she had to crane her neck to see who she’d bumped into. Great. New guy.

“You should watch where you’re going.”

And just like that, any goodwill garnered by the fact that he’d saved her from her own klutziness (and the fact that not only was he built like a superhero, but he had the good looks to match) was gone, replaced by a white-hot rage.

“I should what? What did you just say to me?” She practically spat the words in his face.

He let go of her like she was on fire. From the corner of her eye she could see another blurry figure in camo watching; she guessed it was Conklin, who’d been sticking to the new guy like a leech from the minute he’d arrived.

“Maybe I _could_ watch where I was going, if your buddy over there hadn’t broken my glasses!”

Oh shit. The voice in her head had long given up on telling her to shut up. New guy (yes, one day she’d use his real name – not today) seemed confused more than anything.

“He’s not my-“

She’d had enough. She couldn’t even see if Conklin was amused by the whole exchange, or if she’d just made things worse. She made a vague gesture in the air to indicate the conversation was now over.

“You know what? Go fuck yourself.”

She stalked off, praying as she’d never prayed before that she wouldn’t stumble on the uneven ground, and walked to a seated pair of lumps that she desperately hoped was Tatiana and her brother. And it was. Tatiana looked more worried than ever.

“Felicity . . . “

Felicity rubbed her eyes and groaned.

“I know. _I know_. It’s just . . . I can’t see _anything_ further than about a yard. I’m always straining my eyes, and I’m-“

She swallowed her next words. She’d shown enough weakness for the day. The truth was that she was terrified more than she was angry. She was waiting for Conklin to make his next move, which made her jumpy, and she couldn’t see, which made her jumpier. Tatiana wordlessly held out the food and water she’d saved for her, and Felicity tried to smile her thanks through stiff lips. Vlad just kept shovelling food into his mouth – he didn’t say much, at least not to her. She had an inkling that he disapproved of her friendship with his sister, that he thought Tatiana was getting herself on Conklin’s shit-list for helping her. She didn’t care. She needed a companion here. She’d beg, if necessary.

For the next few days, Felicity was tense and jittery, waiting. She noticed that the new guy (whose name, she’d found out, was Oliver Queen) was watching her too, now, but not with the same predatory intensity as Conklin. Or so Tatiana told her, also mentioning in passing, that Conklin had noticed this new development and didn’t like it one little bit. What the hell was going on? She’d had boyfriends – ok, boyfriend. In college. And a few dates in high school. But no-one had ever fought over her. Maybe Tatiana was mistaken. Or maybe this Oliver Queen guy was just pissed off that she’d insulted him. Maybe she should apologize. Or maybe he was busy with other shit, like enforcing the rules on the occasional runner – he looked like he actually tried to use his head, unlike Conklin.

When she woke up in the middle of the night and saw what was under her hand, she realized she’d been worrying about the wrong guy.

Her mind refused to accept it at first, and she spent a few seconds staring in disbelief at the cake of slam that had just appeared in the hut she shared with Tatiana and the two Asian women. Slam, she thought. What a stupid name. She couldn’t believe she was going to die because of some crappy eighties-inspired drug with a dumbass throwback name. No-one would believe she hadn’t stolen the stuff. Tatiana had warned her – thieves died. No second chances. She guessed Conklin had gotten tired of waiting. She stood up just as Tatiana opened her eyes, her face registering horror as Felicity put the cake of slam on her own blanket, not wanting anyone else to get into trouble because of her. She then snuck out the open doorway of the hut, but Tatiana followed her out, hissing at her to stop.

“Felicity, no! Where are you going?”

Felicity didn’t really know, herself. Just that she had to get away. And if she was going to die, it was going to be on her own terms, not Conklin’s. Tatiana gasped, and Felicity realised she’d spoken out loud. Tatiana's eyes were wide with horror.

“Well, who else would do that to me? Unless you think I stole the drugs.”

Tatiana shook her head. Felicity shrugged.

“And then, once Reiter gives the order to shoot me, he can take me somewhere nice and private, where he can take his time.”

Felicity shuddered. And then she squared her shoulders, and turned in the direction of the beach she’d landed on. Maybe. She was sure it was out there, somewhere. She ignored Tatiana’s hissed pleas, and walked on steadily, staring at the ground in front of her, glad of the full moon for the light it gave. As she walked, she wondered about the landmines this island was supposed to be littered with. Maybe she’d be lucky (ha!) and step on one, and it would at least be quick. They said drowning was a terrible death. But what did they know, she thought sulkily. So she was going to drown after all, she thought, her brain going in a million directions at once. Maybe she’d been meant to die when the plane went down, and this had just been an interlude until death caught up with her. She rolled her eyes. Death doesn’t need to chase us, she told herself. It’s just a matter of time. And she’d run out, she realised, as she stood on a cliff at the edge of the forest, looking down (very far down) at the rocks below. She was completely off track – there was no way she could climb down to the beach. Not that she could even see the beach.

The moonlight illuminated the scene perfectly. She could even see the spot where she’d land, if she jumped. Great. So she couldn’t even pretend, at least to herself, that she was trying to swim home. This was it. Was there something she should say, at this point? Well, besides ‘shit’. And ‘this sucks’. There was the prayer, of course. She’d never been that religious, before. But now everything was different. Her mind turned cynical – no atheists in foxholes, right? She shivered, and realised she’d been standing there for a while, looking out at the unchanging landscape. It was time. Nothing and no-one was going to save her. She closed her eyes and thought of her mother, wishing she could see her one last time, wishing she’d spent more time with her.

A twig snapped behind her and she froze, her heart beating very fast. She’d been too slow, had spent too much time lost in thought. She had to do this quickly.

“Felicity-“

What? That wasn’t Conklin! She bet he didn’t even know her name – he’d never used anything besides ‘darlin’ or ‘honey’ with her, she thought, shuddering. When she turned around, disbelieving, it was him. Frat boy thug. _Fine_. Oliver Queen. He was near enough that she could see the look in his eyes, which was worry. And that was ridiculous. Why would he be worried about her? And how had he gotten so close without her hearing him? Maybe he really was some kind of woodland ninja. He stepped forward and she started backing away.

“How the hell do you know my name?” she asked, through trembling lips, conscious of wishing she sounded more intimidating.

He was holding out his hand even though he was too far away to grab her if she jumped.

“Tatiana told me everything . . . you don’t have to do this.”

He looked horrified. Or acted horrified, whatever. Was she supposed to trust this guy? He’d taken to their little army of thugs like he’d been born to it.

“Why? That’s what I came here for.”

His eyes widened.

“What if you don’t die? What if you just break your back?”

She took one step forward in spite of herself.

“Are you offering to make it quick?”

He had a gun, after all. And a knife. He shook his head as he stared at her in what looked like disbelief.

“I want to help you – I have an idea . . .”

He trailed off when he saw her shaking her head.

“Why? Why should I trust you?”

He blinked a few times, seemingly lost for words.

“Just give me one minute to explain-”

She’d turned around again, looking at the cliff and the rocks. This was pointless. She couldn’t trust this guy, she couldn’t trust anyone. And she was tired – tired of watching her back, tired of going to sleep wondering if she was going to wake up with Conklin on top of her, tired of falling asleep exhausted and waking up crying. It was enough. She was going to jump. Just as the thought came to her, two arms like steel bars circled her waist and lifted her bodily away from the edge, and when she tried to scream, a heavy hand covered her mouth. She’d really messed up this time, she thought resignedly, even as she struggled and kicked and tried to bite his hand. How the hell was she going to get out of this one?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of us who switch off, mentally, when flashback time comes around (no judgement here - that's my Candy Crush Soda time), "slam" is the name of the drug Reiter is growing on the island.
> 
> For those who've been wondering, the next chapter will be Oliver's point of view.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for the lovely response!
> 
> Finally, Oliver's going to tell us what he's been thinking. And he's doing his best not to think about the blonde who told him to go fuck himself the first time they met. No, really. He doesn't even want to know her name (it's Felicity, but you guys knew that).

He should never have walked into that goddam bar with Amanda Waller. What was he thinking? As Oliver patrolled the fields with their psychedelic-looking flowers, and tried to pretend he wasn’t staring at the tiny blonde who’d blown up at him a few days ago, he tried to retrace his steps, to figure out how the hell he’d gotten here.

Fine, he knew how – he’d trusted Amanda Waller. Scratch that, he’d had a drink with Amanda Waller. Like it wasn’t obvious anyplace she went to would be completely under her control. And now he was back on Lian Yu, some kind of armed thug for a drug lord. And with orders to “infiltrate”, whatever the fuck that meant. Why, _why_ hadn’t he gone home after Hong Kong? God, Hong Kong. He’d played so completely into Waller’s hands while he was there, had allowed himself to be turned into a killer, and a torturer, and, apparently, the only one who could blend in with Reiter’s men. And now he was here, watching over whatever fucked up drug Reiter was producing, with the scum of humanity, and the poor saps who’d gotten trapped here. Conklin had some nerve, calling them ‘losers’, like they’d chosen to be here. And Conklin was a piece of work.

Oliver had been there one hour when Conklin had pointed out the girl to him, and warned him off. And he’d had no intention of getting involved – thoughts of Shado, and Sara, and Akio were enough to dissuade him if he got tempted. Maybe Sara was dead, and maybe she wasn’t, but it was his fault that she’d been here in the first place. All he did was fuck things up, so maybe he should just keep out of this one. So, of course he walked straight into her at the first opportunity. He hadn’t been looking where he was going, and apparently she _couldn’t_ , and it had been like some scene from a bad chick flick. Except he was pretty sure the meet-cute didn’t involve the male lead being an asshole. Or maybe it did – Laurel never liked that kind of movie much.

Oliver felt a prickle on the back of his neck – Conklin was glaring at him again. After the ‘watch where you’re going’ incident, Conklin had been on his case, for, as he put it, ‘muscling in on his piece of ass’. And because – actually, he wasn’t sure what he’d been thinking when he just shrugged, and told Conklin, ‘sorry dude, she doesn’t like you much’. Maybe it was the fear in her eyes, which she’d turned into anger and let it out all over him. Very pretty eyes, a voice in his head mused. He froze, horrified. No, no, _no_. He wasn’t interested in her that way. It was all about Laurel, right? He was holding out for Laurel. Oh sure, the same voice said nastily. What about Shado? That was just loneliness, he insisted. And it was a mistake, in the long run. Even if he’d never be able to make it up to Laurel (as he was secretly starting to suspect), he couldn’t afford any distractions. And he felt sorry for the girl, whose name he didn’t want to find out, but he had a job to do, and he was going to do it. Otherwise he’d never get home.

His resolution lasted a few days of watching the girl working the field on her knees, with that Tatiana chick hovering over her, and Conklin glaring at him, until he was woken in the middle of the night by the Russian chick. He must have said something to her, judging by her version of hello.

“I am Ukrainian, you idiot. And let go of my arm.”

She didn’t know how lucky she was – the last person who’d woken him out of a deep sleep had been in a choke hold before Oliver was fully awake. But that usually happened when he was having a nightmare. This time he’d been dreaming of a blond woman kneeling in a field of strawberries, and he’d been woken up just as she bit into one, the juice dripping down her chin. No, he had _no idea_ what that meant. He tried to focus on the pissed off brunette who was still shaking him awake.

“I’m up,” he hissed. “What the hell’s going on?”

As Oliver focused blearily on her, he realised she was holding a cake of slam. The effect on him was like being hit by lightning – he rocketed up, grabbed his MK, and hustled her out of the hut. He was lucky the guys he shared it with were heavy sleepers. Standing outside in the moonlight, he realised that she was terrified, but not of him – of the drug she was holding. She pushed it on him, and rubbed her hands on her clothes, as if to scrub it off her.

“How did you get this?” he hissed.

She glared at him.

“Why don’t you ask your friend Conklin? He’s the one who left it next to Felicity, to make her look like a thief.”

Her accent grew stronger when she was angry, he realised.

“Why would he do that? And who the hell’s Felicity?”

Tatiana gave him a knowing look. Oh. Of course. His fingers tightened on the drugs, and he came to a quick decision. He’d handle this, and try to detach himself. Because his undercover mission wasn’t going very well if Tatiana had come to him, trusting that he would help. There was an armed guard in front of the hut where all the finished product was stored, but he had a better idea. He knew where Conklin slept. As he snuck behind the hut, and quickly hid the cake of slam in some weeds, he knew it wouldn’t fool the man for a second, but it was the best he could do on short notice. Tatiana, who’d followed him there, was still tugging on his arm, though.

“Look, it’s ok,” he said quickly. “Tell your friend it’s fine – no-one will trace it back to her.”

Tatiana was shaking her head.

“She’s gone!”

“What do you mean, gone?”

He realized that the terror he’d been seeing on her face was just fear for her friend – her eyes were shiny with tears, and her voice shook.

“She saw the drugs, and she knew he was going to kill her. And . . . hurt her. And she had enough. She left.”

The tone of her voice told him exactly what Felicity planned to do. He rubbed his face in frustration. She could already be dead, he told himself, though something inside protested wildly against that. Come on. She wasn’t _anything_ to him. And how could he help her? An idea came to him, gradually, and he cringed internally. She wasn’t going to like it. And Tatiana would probably spit in his face once she found out. But it was something that could solve both their problems – her safety from Conklin, and his credibility as a scumbag with no conscience. Now, if only she was still alive. He had to move quickly.

“Which way did she go?”

Tatiana waved in the direction of the cliffs, and Oliver started running. There weren’t many landmines that he knew of in that area, but there was a pretty sheer cliff.

When he burst through the forest and saw a small figure standing at the cliff’s edge, he let himself stop for breath. He still managed to be pretty quiet, though, and only stepped on a twig when he was close enough to stop her if she decided to jump. Through the next few minutes, he quickly came to the conclusion that she wasn’t in a state of mind to listen to anything he had to say – he had to get her away from that damned cliff. He made his move as soon as she turned away, and lifted her away from the edge, covering her mouth when she tried to scream. Didn’t she realise how far sound travelled at night? Probably not, he thought, when her flailing leg caught him a glancing blow on the balls, and he had to suppress a pained grunt. Good thing he’d learned to compartmentalize pain on the island. When he stopped seeing stars, he focused back on her. She’d stopped struggling, but was probably just waiting for her chance.

“I just need you to listen to me for one minute. Please. You can’t scream – you’ll wake the camp and then I won’t be able to help you.”

He looked into her eyes, aware that he was asking for a lot. She squeezed her eyes shut and sighed. And nodded slowly. He put her down carefully and let go of her, backing away slowly, still managing to stay between her and the cliff. He noticed that she gave a couple of looks towards the cliff, and the forest, but didn’t run.

“Let’s just sit down here, and talk. Come on.”

He tried to herd her a bit closer to the forest, and she gave him a doubtful look. But then it was like she just collapsed on the ground, and he felt a wave of pity wash over him. This was horrible. What Reiter and his men were doing to these people was fucking horrible. He didn’t know if he had more sympathy for her because they shared a nationality, and she was young and pretty, but he hoped not. These people . . . all of them. It was just wrong.

She was sitting cross-legged, leaning back, staring at the sky, and he noticed that her fists were clenched on the ground, like she was fighting for control. Good. It was good that she was still fighting. He cleared his throat, and she looked at him.

“My name is Oliver Queen.”

She nodded, not surprised.

“They told me . . . Tatiana, I mean.”

He tried to look encouraging, hoping she’d take the hint.

“I’m Felicity . . . Smoak. That’s ‘Smoak’ with an ‘oa’, not ‘oke’ – not that it matters how you spell my name. I mean, nothing matters here, right? This is hell, and we are in it, right?”

She was talking faster, and gesturing, and he knew she was on the verge of panic. He grabbed her hand as it flailed past him, and squeezed her fingers.

“Hey. Hey. You need to breathe.” He did it for her, deep breaths through his nose, and out through his mouth, and after a few seconds, she followed his example. “A wise man once told me this – for everything, breathe. Always breathe.”

She nodded, blinking back the tears that had been starting to form. She sniffed once or twice, but didn’t try to let go of his hand.

“They said you survived a plane crash.”

It had been Conklin who said this, but he wasn’t going to mention his name, not after he’d got her to calm down.

“Yeah. Pure luck. No idea how I got out of that one. Look, we could exchange life stories and shoot the shit for hours, but I’m kind of on a deadline here. When they find the slam . . .”

She trailed off and shook her head.

“I put it outside Conklin’s hut,” he offered.

She snorted, and he looked at her in surprise. Then it turned into a giggle, and a smile which transformed her whole face. But it didn’t last very long, and she sighed.

“Good call. Though it’s not going to fool anyone.”

“No. And he’s just going to keep trying.”

She nodded, looking sad. And scared. She visibly pulled herself together and pasted a determined look on her face.

“So. What was your grand idea that’s supposed to fix all this?” she asked.

He bit his lip.

“Ok. The deal Conklin was trying to make with you. We could fake that,” he added hurriedly, conscious of her pulling a deep breath, and curling her hands back into fists.

“I don’t . . . how? Fake it how?”

Oliver stumbled through a couple of false starts and half sentences, trying to indicate that he’d get her things she needed, and would get Conklin off her case, and then they’d . . . go for a walk together. Every day. He’d been staring at his hands as he went through his mumbled explanation, secretly irritated at himself that he wasn’t more eloquent. He used to be good at this, he thought, annoyed. What was the matter with him? She sighed again, and he looked up at her.

“Why?”

Her whole body radiated mistrust, but he pretended not to get it, at first.

“Why what?”

She cocked her head in a way he found utterly adorable. No! Not adorable! He was not falling for this girl!

“Why are you doing this? Why should I trust you to keep your end of the deal? What’s in it for you?”

She peppered him with questions, and he realised he’d have to open up to her completely to get her to trust him. This would make him the worst undercover secret agent of all time. A little voice in his head, the one which reminded him of Thea at her most snotty, was yelling ‘so what!’ really, really loud. He’d never asked for any of this. Fucking ARGUS had no right to do this to him. Sure, he could turn on his charming asshole persona, and lie to her, but he had an idea that she wasn’t going to fall for that. Also, he couldn’t do that to her. What she was feeling was written all over her face, and it broke his heart. She was desperately trying to hold on to her composure, and her sanity, it looked like, and she deserved to know that she hadn’t exchanged one rapist for another. He licked his lips, suddenly nervous. What if she didn’t believe him, even then? He’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

“I’m here on a mission. Undercover. I need to be out of camp regularly, no questions asked. This way I’ll have an excuse.”

She punched the air in delight.

“I knew it! Stranded here for three years, my ass. You don’t get muscle tone like that living on twigs and berries for three years.”

He raised an eyebrow and she blushed.

“I noticed when I bumped in to you,” she mumbled, looking down. “And just now you picked me up like it was nothing.”

“I need to get in with Reiter and his men. And I don’t think I’ve been-“

“Enough of an asshole?” she interrupted. “I guess. You didn’t shoot that guy who ran. Though he had a concussion when you and Conklin carried him back.”

“That wasn’t me!”

He was aware that the words came out whinier than he’d intended and winced. And he’d played directly into her hands, he realised as she gave him a knowing look.

“You couldn’t protect that guy from Conklin. Why should I believe you can keep me safe, if I stay in the camp? Can’t you just hide me here . . . somewhere?”

Felicity waved her hands around vaguely, and he groaned inside. Yes, he’d thought of that. He’d fake her death and hide her in Yao Fei’s cave. And it wouldn’t work. He couldn’t get away regularly to feed her, and he was sure she couldn’t hunt. And if the others found her one day they’d both be in trouble. No, she had to stay in camp, where he’d have an excuse to leave for ‘lunch’ every day, and check in with Waller. He tried to explain everything to her, without mentioning Waller.

“Lunch, huh? Is that what we’re calling it? What, was ‘sex in exchange for toothpaste and tampons’ taken?”

Oliver felt hopeful. She was leaning back on her hands, and still looked a bit sceptical, but seemed to be moving towards acceptance.

“I can get you toothpaste, sure. I don’t know about the other . . . stuff,” he added, embarrassed.

She smiled sunnily.

“You’re in luck, mister, ‘cos my time in this hellhole has so messed up my cycle I don’t know when I’m getting my period next.”

She enunciated the word ‘period’ with perfect clarity, enjoying the effect it was having on him, and suddenly he knew. She was in.

“Toothpaste, now. I’ve been moaning about toothpaste so much, I bet Tatiana will totally believe that I’m blowing you for toothpaste.”

“She has to believe it, Felicity,” he answered.

It was the second time he’d said her name, and he liked the feel of it in his mouth. Wow, that thought was pretty sensual, he realised. He pushed it aside.

“You can’t tell her the truth. Look, I know she saved your life tonight, but it’s not her that I don’t trust, it’s her brother.”

Felicity nodded, fully on board now, it seemed.

“I wouldn’t blame him,” she said, wistfully. “They have to watch out for each other.”

He nodded. He knew exactly how he’d feel if Thea was trapped in a place like this. He looked Felicity in the eyes and held out his hand.

“Do we have a deal?”

She raised an eyebrow, and her lips quirked into a reluctant smile. They shook hands, and she nodded, answering him.

“Deal. Though I think it’s a crazy plan.”

“Yeah?” he answered, puzzled. It wasn’t _that_ bad.

Felicity gave an exasperated sigh.

“You’re supposed to answer, ‘But it’s crazy enough to work!’”

Oliver quirked an eyebrow, though he was cheering on the inside – this was the real Felicity, he realised; not the angry, terrified woman he’d met in the poppy field.

“Ah. Pop culture.”

She rolled her eyes, and looked like she was going to say ‘duh!’ but then started shivering. He hardly felt the cold anymore, but it got pretty damp here at night. He got up, and pulled her up with him.

“Are you ready?”

She nodded, and squared her shoulders. As they walked towards the camp, Oliver went over the plan again. He was going to save her. He was going to do one good thing, if it was the last thing he did. And then, if he survived it, maybe he could finally go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The way Oliver tried to help Taiana on the show, that was a stupid idea. What he should have done was 'choke' her in front of Conklin, then pretend he's going to bury her and then take her to Yao Fei's cave. I mean, it's not very secret if Conklin now knows where it is. And didn't he tell her not to light fires in the daytime? Ugh. 
> 
> So, I wasn't going to use that idea here, especially as I've already used it, in my other fic, All the difference (which I started writing long before the Season 4 premiere).
> 
> Anyway, hope you like this chapter - I've made a resolution for this fic, that I won't post a chapter before I have the following one almost ready. It's working so far!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos and comments!
> 
> Quick note: Reiter (the guy in charge who's growing the weird poppy hybrid to make a new drug) has a bundle of twigs he uses as a mystic lie detector. Yes, I _know_.

Going back to the camp was the hardest thing Felicity had ever done, and all the way there she wondered over and over if she’d made the right choice. She kept sneaking glances at the impossibly handsome man walking at her side, and still wasn’t sure if she could trust him. But it had never been a real choice – the ones that ended with “or death” never were. Once he’d offered her a chance, she’d grabbed it with both hands, not really thinking what it involved, and now she winced. She was going to have to lie, and lie convincingly, to the only person who’d really helped her after she’d arrived in this hellhole.

“What’s wrong?”

She stumbled over a rock, and miraculously didn’t land on her face, thanks to the arm holding her up. She looked up at him, exasperated. He waited until she was steady on her feet, and shrugged.

“You were thinking really loud,” he continued.

She felt her lips pulling into a reluctant smile, and yelled at herself for opening up to this guy. You don’t know him, Felicity! He could be an axe murderer! He could be making suits out of human skin! He quirked an eyebrow.

“I . . . don’t know how to respond to that.”

Too late she realised she’d said most of that out loud. She groaned.

“My verbal filter has decided to trust you and is now in off mode,” she hissed, careful of the fact that they were getting closer to the camp. “The rest of me is having second thoughts. And I don’t know how I’m going to convince Tatiana you’re my sugar daddy when I practically puked every time Conklin glanced at me . . .”

She glanced at him again, and stuttered to a halt, running out of words. He was smiling. And not in a creepy ‘I’ve got you now, my pretty’ way. It just looked like she was actually making him smile, and he looked really different when he smiled. Younger, for one. Not so menacing. He noticed her looking, and the smile fell off his face. Wow, he was good at this. Maybe she should have asked for a few pointers at the cliff – no. Scratch that. The longer she stayed there, the more she was tempted. She shuddered at the memory. While she walked along, lost in thought, and trying not to stumble in the dark, he’d been seriously considering what she’d said, half of which she’d already forgotten.

“First of all, don’t call me sugar daddy. Second, and this is gonna sound awful, but here you kind of need a man to take care of you? And Tatiana might understand it if you explain it to her like that – she has a brother to take care of her. But you don’t. She’s still gonna spit in my face, though,” he concluded, brooding.

“Oh, poor you,” she mocked. “But you’re right – she might accept it that way.”

They’d arrived on the outskirts of the camp, and fell quiet as he escorted her to the hut she’d been sleeping in. They exchanged a look before she went in – the plan was she’d pretend to go back to sleep, and he’d just lurk around until the missing cake of slam was discovered. Conklin would probably organise it to happen before dawn, so that it could be found next to her. Asshole, she thought as she snuck in. I’m looking forward to seeing the look on his face when they find it behind his hut.

“Felicity?”

Oh, shit. Lying to Tatiana would have to start sooner than she’d anticipated. The woman had tears in her eyes, and for a second, Felicity was ashamed of what she would have to do. No, no. Come on, Felicity. Survive, right? That’s one of the things Oliver had told her to do, along with ‘breathe’. Oh, he’s ‘Oliver’ now, is he, her inner voice asked nastily. Shut up, she told herself, trying to concentrate on what Tatiana was saying.

“I’m so glad he found you in time,” Tatiana whispered. Way to make me feel worse, Felicity sighed, trying hard to keep her feelings from showing. Then she resolved herself.

“Yes. Thank you . . . thank you for sending him,” she stumbled, and cringed. Focus, girl! She found it hard to meet Tatiana’s eyes, and maybe that would help. She looked up, and Tatiana seemed puzzled. Felicity cleared her throat and continued.

“He- I mean we – I mean. Ugh. We came to . . . um . . . an agreement.”

Tatiana’s eyes widened and a look of outrage came over her face. She started to get up, and Felicity clamped her hand over her wrist to stop her. She tried to inject a note of desperation into her voice. She had to convince her – if she couldn’t convince Tatiana, her friend, how could she convince anyone else?

“Please. I need this – I need someone to . . . watch over me. Conklin will keep after me, and I can’t stop him. You have Vlad, but I have no-one.”

Tatiana’s face was a picture of anguish, and Felicity felt like the worst person on earth. And that was just for now, she thought. If I’m wrong about Oliver Queen, I’m going to feel like the _dumbest_ person on earth.

“I am sure that . . . if I ask Vladimir-“

Tatiana broke off, unable to continue. Felicity shook her head, and tried to dress it up nicely in a way which wouldn’t offend her.

“He’s doing all he can for his sister,” she said gently. “It’s unfair to ask him to do more. It won’t be so bad . . . “

Felicity didn’t know what else to say. It won’t be so bad, because he’s hot? Wow, Felicity – shallow, and setting the women’s rights movement back a couple of decades. Good job. Tatiana’s face darkened.

“I thought he was different from the others. Pig!”

She said an angry-sounding word in Ukrainian and spat to the side. Oh lord, Felicity thought. Oliver’s getting it in the face for sure. Just as she was wondering what else she could say to justify herself, she heard someone banging a piece of metal on an empty oil drum which usually signalled that they had to get up and go to work. And Oliver was there, looking nonchalant. When she met his eyes, he shook his head slightly. What was Conklin playing at? She looked at Oliver again, and noticed his expression was more sheepish than before, and a glance to her side confirmed why. Tatiana was staring at him, with a glare in her eyes that could melt steel. Oliver followed them to the fields, and Tatiana spat something at him in Ukrainian. Felicity had no idea what it meant, but Vlad, who was passing by to check on his sister, winced.

They were just half an hour into their early shift when Conklin strolled up, the usual smirk on his face.

“Reiter wants to see you.”

Felicity got up, uncertainly, and looked at Oliver. Conklin seemed to be waiting for that, and faced him.

“You too, Queen.”

Felicity shivered slightly. That was pure hatred in Conklin’s voice. She dusted off her hands as she walked, paying special attention to where she put her feet so that she wouldn’t have to look at either of the two men. Maybe putting herself in the middle of a power struggle hadn’t been the best idea she’d ever had. But she was kind of out of options, here.

When she walked into the command hut, it was only the second time she’d seen Reiter since she’d come here. And he was still the most terrifying man she’d ever met. There was a bundle of twigs on his desk, and he was staring at it, but his eyes fastened on her as soon as she entered. Though he addressed Oliver first, pointing the twigs at him. They looked half red, like they were tied with red string, but Felicity wasn’t sure. Were they dipped in blood? Or was that red wax? And what were they supposed to do?

“Mr Conklin tells me you’ve warned him off this woman, here,” he said, indicating Felicity.

Oliver shrugged and crossed his arms.

“Yes.”

Good, good, Felicity thought. He didn’t babble like she’d be inclined to. Reiter wasn’t finished, though.

“You know I don’t allow any form of sexual coercion involving the workers here.”

Felicity desperately wanted to laugh really loud and in a really sarcastic tone. It actually hurt her to keep that inside. You could have stopped Conklin at any time, Mr Twitchy Asshole, she thought resentfully. You just don’t want to _know_ about it. Oliver managed to keep a hold of himself better than her, though. He just fixed Reiter with those big blue eyes, and – whoa, Felicity. Slow down, girl. She managed to focus on what Oliver was saying.

“She’s not being coerced. We have an . . . arrangement. You can ask her if you don’t believe me,” he added, with a sideways glance at Conklin.

Gee, thanks, Felicity thought, as those dead shark’s eyes swivelled back to her. Reiter got up from behind his desk and pointed the bundle of twigs at her. Great. A magical lie detector. That was _cheating._

“What is this arrangement? Why are you agreeing to it? Tell me the truth. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

With a faint voice Felicity felt was coming from somewhere outside herself, she answered.

“He said he’ll take care of me.” She lowered her eyes and considered the rest of the question, but ultimately shrugged. That was enough, wasn’t it?

The only sound in the tent was Conklin’s mocking snort. But none of that was technically a lie, and it seemed that Reiter bought it. Though he wasn’t done with Felicity yet.

“You didn’t agree to Conklin’s terms, but you agreed to Mr Queen’s. Why?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Conklin’s bulging eyes as he stared in shock. So, he’d thought Reiter had no idea of what he was doing. She focused back on answering the question without lying or telling the _whole_ truth. Fortunately, this one was easier.

“Conklin makes my flesh crawl.” She stared directly at him as she said it, and he sneered.

“And,” she added, her voice increasing in volume as she got angrier, “he broke my glasses!”

Reiter seemed satisfied, if she read the twitches correctly. He went back behind his desk.

“I must insist you keep this as private as possible, Queen.”

Oliver nodded, and then gave Conklin a sideways glance. “If the whole camp gets to know, there’ll only be one person responsible.”

Conklin started spluttering. But Reiter was done with them.

“Enough! Queen, escort her back to the field.”

As Felicity left the hut, she could hear Reiter start saying something like, ‘You started this, Conklin-‘ but then she moved away. Oliver’s hand was on her arm, and, strangely enough, it was a reassuring weight. He managed to tell her what was happening on the way back.

“This morning, all the drugs were accounted for. He must have noticed that you were gone, and then found where I’d hidden them.”

She nodded. And, between then and now, Oliver’d told Conklin that she was – what? His? This was some crazy fucked up shit, she thought despairingly. Like she was some catch, after weeks in this hellhole without a shower. She was about to ask him how he’d pulled that one off, when they arrived at the field, and she got back to work.

She managed to answer Tatiana’s querying look with a shrug, and soon got into the rhythm of weeding, so much so that she was surprised when the clanging announced lunch. A shadow fell over her. When she looked up, squinting against the glare, she recognised blurry Oliver, as she’d started calling him. She _really_ missed her glasses. He jerked his head to the side, and she got up, her heart beating faster. This was it. The moment of truth.

As she followed him out of the camp and into the forest, her heart was jackhammering in her chest, and her fists were clenching involuntarily. They came to a large clearing with some rocks and bushes at one end, and Oliver stopped, dropping a backpack on the ground. He knelt to start rummaging in it, and it took him a few seconds to realise she was still standing in front of him, biting her lip nervously. He looked up at her, puzzled, and got up again. She felt like she was frozen in place, and started shaking. He put his hands on her shoulders, and looked deep into her eyes, which were starting to fill with tears.

“Hey. “

She blinked rapidly, and sniffed.

“I’m sorry. Up till now, I wasn’t sure . . .”

His bit his lip and looked away a couple of times. She knew she was making him uncomfortable, but she couldn’t just switch off her fears.

“It’s ok . . . Felicity.” She didn’t miss the hesitation before he said her name. “I . . . get it. But I need you to know, I would never . . . “

She nodded. And that was the moment she really started trusting him, and believing he meant what he said.

“Now come on, I got you something to eat.”

The tension left her in a wave. She felt limp and slightly nauseated, and also really, really hungry, which was a weird combination. They hadn’t stopped for food before leaving the camp, and she’d been too caught up in her apprehension to think of it. He brought out a pack from his bag which said MEAL on it, and he looked at it doubtfully.

“It says southwest chicken and rice on it. Is that ok?”

When he didn’t get a response he looked up, and registered that she was staring at him with her mouth open.

“Is that- Do you realise we eat bread and water all the time? I don’t even remember what chicken tastes like!”

He looked sad.

“I’m so-“

She waved it off.

“It’s ok. Ignore me. I’m kinda losing my mind at eating real food again.”

He started preparing the pouch to heat it up, and took his watch off.

“Here – you have to leave it for ten to twelve minutes to heat up – eat slowly. Your stomach isn’t used to this anymore.”

He rubbed his hands over his head and looked at her.

“Listen. I have to go and – this is why I needed to get away from camp regularly, and it’s best you don’t know why.”

She nodded, slowly, though most of her attention was on the heating pack, which was starting to inflate. Chicken! And rice! She looked up at him, and noticed a small smile at the corners of his mouth.

“I got it – secret stuff, yada yada . . . wait! What if someone comes and sees I’m on my own?”

He was already walking off into the bushes.

“I’ve set a few small traps on the path, and around it. Nothing major, just enough that I’ll know if someone’s following us. So don’t worry – eat, and rest. I’ll be back soon.”

Felicity tried to wait the full twelve minutes, she really did. But she was so hungry. After seven minutes she grabbed the pack, and ripped it open, trying not to burn her fingers. The smell of food, _real_ food, almost overwhelmed her. But she managed to control herself, taking small bites and chewing them about a million times, because this . . . this was a meal to be savoured. When she finished, she used her fingers to scrape all the sauce out, not before looking around to make sure Oliver wasn’t back. But he wasn’t, and she was surprised by a huge yawn. She’d hardly slept the previous night, and now, with a full stomach, her eyes started sliding closed. The third time she almost fell over, she gave up and lay down. Just five minutes, she thought muzzily. Then she’d get up.

She was on the life-raft again, but this time she was on her own. The sea was rough, she thought, and there was a voice in it, too . . .

“Felicity! Wake up!”

She opened her eyes and it all came back to her. And the movement wasn’t the sea, it was Oliver shaking her shoulder to wake her. She looked at his expression of indulgent exasperation, and noticed that he was suppressing a smile, again.

“What?”

Ugh, why had she slept during the day? She knew it made her irritable and snappy. But Oliver was unruffled.

“You snore,” he said, smirking.

“I do _not_!”

She tried to convey as much outrage as possible.

“Yup. Tiny snores, like a hamster. Or a hedgehog, right now,” he said, grinning.

She passed her hands over her hair and realised most of it had escaped from her ponytail, and hurriedly tried to put it back. She winced when she touched her head – the grease in it could probably lubricate an engine right now. Oliver snorted.

“It’s not that bad.”

Great. Perfect. She was babbling again. He looked at her, and hesitated before speaking.

“Maybe it’s better to leave it a bit messy? Um.”

She realised what he was trying to say, and appreciated how carefully he was trying to say it – he probably didn’t want her to melt down again. But this time she was determined to keep it together – it was already against her nature to rely on a man for protection, she wasn’t going to play the weeping damsel anymore.

“You’re right. Conklin won’t believe we’re fucking if I don’t look a bit . . . uh. Maybe I should put mud on my back?”

She did her best to sound matter of fact, and was proud at her effort. No-one one would ever know how much it cost her to sound so breezy. He looked sad, though, which puzzled her. But then he shook it off, and nodded.

“Grass-stains,” he said. “Here, let me.”

He grabbed a handful of grass, and rubbed it over her back. His hand was so warm, she realised. And big, too. She shivered, slightly. They were halfway through the forest, when he stopped.

“Almost forgot something,” he said, before he rummaged in his bag again, and then hesitated.

“Some of the luggage from your plane washed up on the shore. Do you feel ok with using . . . “

He didn’t seem to know how to finish, but she got what he was saying. Sure, it was looting. Ordinarily, she’d be against that. But they couldn’t use it anymore, and she needed it. Whatever it was. She just nodded at him, wondering what he’d got her. When he pulled out a half-full tube of toothpaste and a tiny bottle of shampoo, she burst into tears. He patted her awkwardly on her back, probably thinking she was going crazy. She tried to express how grateful she was, but he just shushed her, and she did her best to wipe her face.

When she got back to the field, she quickly got back to weeding, hoping Tatiana wouldn’t notice she’d been crying. Oliver started patrolling, and Conklin strolled past, looking daggers at her the whole time. It was almost as if the hour in the clearing had been a dream, but when she felt the reassuring bulges of the shampoo and toothpaste in her pockets, she knew it was all real. And even though she was still scared of Conklin and what he’d do now, she felt hopeful of the future. Whether that was a good or bad thing, only time would tell.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments and kudos!

A week after he started his arrangement with Felicity, Oliver woke up with a smile on his face. Then, paradoxically, he groaned, clapping a hand over his eyes. His first thought when he woke up was wondering what he was getting her for lunch today. The second, the fact that he had a job to do here, though it wasn’t the job Waller had given him. Not that he really knew what that was. All he’d been told was ‘infiltrate’, and he was doing that. And then what? If there was one consolation, it was that Waller didn’t want him to make a deal with Reiter – or at least if she did, she hadn’t told him yet. Still, he had his own plan in mind, now. All those people working the fields at gunpoint, they were going free, even if he had to blackmail ARGUS to get it to happen. And now that he was leaving the camp on a daily basis, under Reiter’s watchful eye, he had more opportunities than ever to contact them.

He’d started putting his plan into motion a few days ago, letting some normal sign-ins go by, to lull her into a false sense of security. And then he’d sprung a bombshell – all he’d typed that day was a demand to communicate directly with Waller, otherwise he was spilling his guts to Reiter. And then nothing, for twenty-four hours. When he signed in again, it was obvious that whoever was on the other end wasn’t Waller, so he entered one phrase.

_I’m out._

Then he closed the computer and strolled to Felicity, who was still eating. She looked up in surprise. It occurred to him that there was something different about her lately. This was besides the fact that her hair was really curly, something he hadn’t realised before she’d started washing it regularly. She grumbled about it all the time, inserting little queries about any flat irons that might have washed up on the shore. He didn’t point out that immersion in salt water wasn’t usually a good thing for electrical devices; also, where was she going to plug it in? He just smiled and said that he liked her hair curly, which always made her roll her eyes and start calling him _papi_. But it wasn’t that. She was just smiling more. The first time she’d smiled at him, or in his general direction, Conklin had been there, face twisted into a sneer. He’d moved away so he wouldn’t have to listen to anything that asshole said, having learnt his lesson after the time Conklin had asked if she’d let him put it in her ass yet. He’d clenched his jaw and ground his teeth till it hurt in a desperate effort to control himself, because he knew that if he smashed Conklin’s face in, as he so badly wanted to, the deal would be off. And Reiter would kill her. So he kept himself under control, and developed a selective deafness to whatever Conklin was saying.

And he’d warned Felicity to cut down on the smiling when Conklin was around. She was supposed to be resentful, and resigned, not happy. She’d shrugged and said she’d try, and then had corrected herself.

“I know, I know. Do or do not, right?”

At his blank look, she’d rolled her eyes, and called him culturally deprived. He’d hidden a smirk. Of course he’d caught the reference, but he was starting to enjoy her various eye rolls. Which was when he realised he needed to follow his own advice, though he had more of an excuse to be relaxed and happy than she had.

So he’d made his play with Waller, and now all he had to do was wait. And watch Felicity eat, which was harder than he ever expected it to be. She swallowed and licked her lips, and he bit his, trying desperately to control his instant physical reaction. It wasn’t working. But she didn’t seem to notice.

“Do you want some?”

She was holding out the pouch and he shook his head.

“I already ate.”

“Ok, your loss.”

She went back to the noodles and acted nonchalant, though she kept shooting him little glances from under her eyelashes, curious about the change in routine. He made his face deliberately blank, even as he wondered how he’d gotten so . . . _into_ her. When he’d hatched the plan, he hadn’t realised that spending time with her would end up with them building a . . . was this a friendship? He was just so insanely curious about her. Where was she from? Why had she been on that plane from Hong Kong? Would she be interested in dating an ex-billionaire playboy who’d fucked up every relationship he’d had? The thought was like being struck by lightning – or rather, being electrocuted by a madman with a grudge, something he knew all about. He’d been able to fool Conklin because he hadn’t been lying – he did want her. It took him all his self-control to hold back a rueful laugh – was this his punishment for all the crap he’d pulled in the past? Now there was a woman _he_ wanted, and she was the one he could never have. He shook off the thought, and cleared his throat.

“You never told me where you’re from – you kind of know about me already.”

She nodded as she scraped in the pack for the last of the noodles. He felt a sudden pang at the thought that she was still hungry. He wished he could get her more food, but she couldn’t eat it anywhere else – they’d both be fucked if it got around that they had some kind of . . . deal. She’d asked him, at first, why Reiter was so insistent on keeping it a secret. When he’d started to explain that if the other guys found out he was getting laid on the regular, they would insist on the same, she’d made this flailing gesture with her hands, squeezing her eyes shut at the same time, muttering ‘I get it, I get it,’ under her breath. She waved the plastic fork at him.

“Oliver Queen, trust-fund kid, really rich, bla bla bla. I mean, that’s what they say. How come you’re stuck here, anyway? Couldn’t you just tell Reiter your parents will pay anything he wants for your rescue?”

She looked curious, and he realised she really didn’t know anything about him. It was kind of refreshing. She didn’t know what an enormous mess he’d made of his life.

“My father died when our boat went down.”

Oliver tried to sound matter of fact, but her face fell.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry. I’m such an idiot.”

“No, it’s ok. It’s been three years now.” He tried to imply he was over it, though nothing could be farther from the truth. Her knowing look suggested that she wasn’t buying it. “And one thing I’ve learned since then – there are people who _really_ don’t care about money.”

“Then they’ve never been poor,” she said, carefully wiping the plastic fork on some grass. “My mom’s a cocktail waitress in Vegas, and my dad walked out on us when I was a kid. She had to work so hard to keep us afloat.” She was playing with a few bits of grass now, crushing them between her fingers. “I gave her such a hard time,” she whispered, almost under her breath.

Dammit, this wasn’t what he’d wanted, and he racked his brain for something to cheer her up, or at least stop her from crying.

“So, are you a cocktail waitress too?” he asked, dredging up his Ollie voice from out of nowhere. “That sounds hot!”

She looked up in surprise, her eyes shiny.

“I am not!” But she was smiling, and he sighed in relief. “I have a Master’s from MIT.”

Now it was his turn to stare in shock.

“Wow. That’s . . . wow.” He shook his head. “So we were neighbours when I went to Harvard . . . “ He looked at her sideways. “Before I got kicked out.”

She had a wide smile on her face now.

“Party boy, huh?” He grinned back at her, but her face fell suddenly. “And look at us now. You’re some kind of hired heavy, and I’m a prostitute.”

He caught her hand.

“We’re getting out of this, Felicity. I’m getting us out of this.”

She nodded, avoiding his eyes. Though she didn’t try to twist her hand out of his. He tried not to read too much into it.

The silence between them was comfortable, and he felt he could have stayed there for hours. But he needed to check on the laptop, and then they needed to get going. When he looked at the weirdly small screen, he groaned. There were error messages scrolling down at an impossible speed, and when he tapped a key, the screen froze. He swore, long and loud, starting in English and moving on to Mandarin, which was a great language for it. He was really tempted to smash the thing into pieces, and might have, if he hadn’t been interrupted.

“I’d ask if you kissed your mother with that mouth, if I knew what you were saying.”

He groaned.

“Felicity . . . you can’t be involved in this.”

“I’m already involved, Oliver. Super-involved. And maybe I can help, if that’s a keyboard I heard.”

He looked around, but she wasn’t standing behind him or anything. She must have _really_ good hearing. Well, it wasn’t like he could take the thing to a Best Buy. Maybe she could help him.

“Uhh . . . do you know something about computers?”

He heard a theatrically loud sigh behind him, and the sound of someone dusting themselves off.

“May I remind you of a little school I went to, called the Massachusetts Institute of Technology? Where I studied Computer Sciences, among other things?”

Felicity came around the bush behind him, and as soon as her eyes focused on the computer, they lit up. Of course, she had to get really close to it to do that – her nose was almost hitting the tiny screen.

“Oooh, this is some fancy schmancy military tech – wow.” She was lost in admiration, and then looked at him accusingly. “What did you do to it?”

“I . . . nothing! I checked in as usual, and then I kinda . . . gave them an ultimatum.” The last few words were squeezed together in a hurried mumble.

She cocked her head to the side, giving him one of those quizzical looks he was starting to look forward to. He realised he wanted to explain himself to her, to tell her everything, and laughed. Maybe Waller should give her a job. He sighed.

“It’s not like I was given a choice to go on this mission. I was handed a parachute and kicked off a plane. Literally.”

Too late he remembered that maybe he shouldn’t mention traumatic plane experiences to someone who’d survived a crash, but she just nodded distractedly, already focused on fixing whatever was wrong with the computer. She made a curious gesture which he’d seen her do before – she used two fingers to push something up on her face, and he suddenly realised what it was. She was adjusting her glasses – the ones she didn’t have anymore. She realised at the same time as he did, and visibly shook it off, choosing instead to focus on the tech in front of her.

“Hmm. So you think this is sort of a punishment from your boss – like, this is what happens when you try to push us around, buster.”

She picked the computer up, and turned it over, muttering something about power supplies and ports under her breath. He realised that this was a conversation she was having with herself, and, occasionally, the machine. She tapped a few keys, managing to unfreeze the screen. Then she really went to work, writing lines of scrolling code faster than the eye could follow, and all he could do was stare open-mouthed. She was talking to herself while she did all this.

“Now, the trick is not to show them what we’re doing, pretend we think it’s a glitch, and maybe they’ll think _we_ think it’s just a random crash, and we’ll all . . . live . . . happily ever after. There!”

The cursor came back, the same way it was before he’d started playing mind games with Waller, and he looked at her in open admiration. She didn’t see it, her eyes still on the screen, her voice filled with satisfaction.

“If they ask you how you fixed it, just tell them you turned it off and on again.”

She gave him a sunny smile, which changed into a puzzled look when she saw him staring. He really, really wanted to kiss her right now. He was sure it showed in his eyes, too. There was something in hers, something responsive, he thought – at least, she wasn’t throwing the computer at his head and running away. Yet. Then the screen resolved into words, and their eyes were drawn to it, and the moment passed.

_This is Waller. What’s wrong, Oliver?_

He had a few seconds to regret that he was giving Felicity information that might be dangerous for her to have. But it couldn’t be helped.

_Prove it’s you, tell me something only we know_

He wasn’t going to waste his time on some lackey again, and hoped that Waller had seen sense. Then she described exactly what happened to her that time in Hong Kong, with General Shrieve, he was convinced. There was no way someone like Amanda Waller would tell any of her underlings that some grunt had managed to capture and torture her.

_I’m doing everything you asked. I’m part of Reiter’s team. I’m infiltrating. Now I need something from you_

_I’m listening._

_There’s people here – they’re working in the fields, at gunpoint. When your guys come, they go free_

_Your sentimentality will get you killed._

_Yes or no, Waller? If it’s no, Reiter has a new best buddy_

_Yes._

She signed off, and Oliver let out the breath he’d been holding. It had worked! He could barely believe it. And the only reason for that was Felicity. She was staring at her fingers, and he suddenly realised that she was dying to ask him more, but was also scared. No, he couldn’t involve her any more than he already had.

He got up, and packed the computer away, camouflaging it as best he could behind the bushes. Felicity looked wistful. He gave her a look.

“I’ll let you touch it again tomorrow – I mean-“

She snorted with laughter.

“It’s usually me who comes up with the terrible innuendo, Oliver.”

“You could have told me that before I caught it off you,” he grinned, wondering why he was so happy.

They were both smiling when they went through the forest, back to the camp, though he stopped them as they got closer.

“Remember – we can’t-“

Felicity waved him off.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

She went back to the field without a backward look, and he could only stare at her in admiration.

Of course, the first person he saw had to be Conklin. Oliver braced himself for more of the guy’s bullshit, but he only mumbled something about Reiter wanting them in his hut. Which turned out to be a lie. Reiter was in the middle of beating information out of some scrawny guy with a British accent. And when the guy managed to get out of handcuffs, somehow, and turn the tables on Reiter, Oliver knew this was a fuck up of massive proportions. Being led out of Reiter’s hut, at gunpoint, was just the rancid icing on the terrible cake. Oliver could have happily spent his entire life without meeting John Constantine, whoever that was.

“Exorcist, Demonologist, and Master of the Dark Arts, mate. Just like it says on my card.”

Whatever, dude, he thought. Then he almost froze in shock at the realization that he was starting to think like she talked, now. He shook off the thought and focussed on the more immediate problem: the gun barrel being pushed into the small of his back. Maybe he could distract this guy with some good, old-fashioned trash talk.

“A Master of the Dark Arts who needs a gun? Don’t remember that from Harry Potter.”

Constantine pushed him again, and shot out the tyres on the camp’s second Jeep.

“I could cast a spell that’d make you shit out your insides, but a gun is quicker. And I need you to drive me to the location on the map. Don’t worry, mate. I’ll let you get back to enslaving and torturing people once I’m done.”

That was the problem, Oliver thought, ignoring the insult. When would he be done? And what would that asshole Conklin do to Felicity in the meantime?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, John Constantine, huh? I needed him in this story because of the tattoo he gives Oliver.
> 
> Once again, no questions about how Felicity fixes the computer, please. Contrivance, computers are magic, our girl is a genius. Take your pick.
> 
> Also, regarding the "Do, or do not. There is no try." I've decided that even if Oliver's never seen Star Wars, he'll have heard it _somewhere_. I'm pretty sure teachers of a certain age are fond of saying it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for responding to this story, even as the flashbacks on the show grow ever duller!
> 
> I love you guys!

Felicity walked back to the field, feeling better than she had in a long time. Working on that amazing military computer, and coding again for the first time in what seemed like years was like nothing on earth. She was pretty sure she’d seen some top secret, need to know, classified stuff, but she’d pretended it had all flown out of her bubblehead brain as soon as he’d packed the laptop away.

That was pretty unfair to Oliver, though – she’d seen something very like respect in his eyes. Oh really, a voice crowed in her head. Respect is what we’re calling it these days? Maybe . . . ok, maybe there was something else. The way he’d looked at her when she’d fixed it . . . in a movie there’d have been the sound of swelling violins reaching a crescendo. Or something like that. She waved the thought away. What had she seen, really? A look in his eyes? Sure. Like she could see anything right now. And this wasn’t _high school_. This was the most dangerous place she’d ever been, she thought, as she got back to work. Tatiana was already there, and they exchanged nods. Felicity allowed herself a bit of nostalgia for their friendship. She might be imagining it, but Tatiana was colder to her ever since she’d started this _thing_ with Oliver. I guess it’s true what they say happens after you go all the way – she doesn’t respect me anymore. Felicity almost giggled, and then bit the inside of her mouth until the impulse passed. Wow, if Oliver had known what an effect a bit of real work would have on her, he wouldn’t even have let her touch the thing. The computer thing. Not his- come _on_ , Felicity! Enough!

She knuckled down, reminding herself, once again, that she was in a horribly volatile place, and needed to focus. Two bangs in quick succession made her jump, and she sobered up completely. If she’d been anywhere but here, she would have dismissed the sound as a car backfiring, or fireworks. She was on the island, though. She knew better. Felicity heard some muttering from the other workers, and she looked up, only to see Vlad sneaking towards them, whispering something to the guard. He made a bee-line for Tatiana, and they immediately launched into a rapid conversation in Ukrainian. They kept looking over at her, and she started to get worried. Vlad snuck away again, and Tatiana quickly knelt next to her, pretending she was helping. Felicity’s mouth went dry. She could barely get the words out.

“What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

Tatiana looked at her, almost pityingly.

“A strange man took Oliver away – he had a gun. Oliver is supposed to help him find something on the island. They say,” and here she stopped, seeming unwilling to continue.

Felicity felt her lips trembling.

“Go on,” she hissed.

“They say he will not come back. This man will kill him . . . or-“

“Or he’ll take the opportunity to escape,” Felicity finished, feeling a lead weight land on her chest.

The ridiculous thought came suddenly to her mind – it wasn’t _fair_! She hadn’t done anything wrong! Why should she be this afraid? Why should she live like this? She shook her head.

“I don’t accept that.”

Tatiana gave her a half-admiring, half-speculative look.

“Still, you must avoid Conklin as much as possible.”

Felicity gave her a tired look, raising her eyes to indicate the man himself, who’d just strolled up to replace one of their guards.

“That’s going to be hard.”

She only realised _how_ hard it would be when all the water she’d drunk that day started making itself felt. She held it in as long as she could, but when the pressure became unbearable, got up and started walking towards the clump of trees where she’d been told she could relieve herself when they were in the field.

“Where do you think you’re going, sweetheart?”

She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists, her back to him.

“I need to piss.”

“Go right ahead, honey. Don’t walk too far now!”

It’s a trap, she kept telling herself. As soon as I pull my pants down, I’m going to find him there, staring at me. She couldn’t hold it in any longer, though – and she’d come too far to just piss herself in front of everyone. So, you’d rather hold on to your pride than avoid rape, she thought bitterly. Right now, that would be about right. She got to a few bushes and trees which made her feel a bit hidden, and quickly crouched down. When she was finished, she got her clothes back on as fast as she could, but she hadn’t been fast enough. He was waiting for her, next to the last of the trees, the usual smirk on his face. The only way back was through him.

Conklin made no move to get out of her way, and, as she tried to walk around him, he grabbed her arm and pushed her against a tree. She’d always thought she’d be paralysed by fear at this point, but it was strange. She’d spent so long being afraid, that the feeling had almost no meaning anymore. Instead, she was angry. A violent rage was building up inside her, and she had to keep it down, because he had a gun, and a knife, and who knew what else.

“Let go of me!”

He pushed his gun to the side and plastered himself against her. She could feel his breath on her face as he buried his nose in her hair, and had to concentrate to keep her stomach contents down. His hand was gripping her arm like a vice. That would become a bruise, later, she thought distantly. She forced herself to focus on the present. He helped.

“Didn’t you hear? Your boyfriend’s gone. He ain’t coming back. “

She saw red, and, instead of suppressing the rage, let it all out.

“Didn’t you hear _me_? Let. Me. Go!”

She twisted her arm to break his hold and was gratified when she managed it, sure she’d seen it in a movie or on tv. He was still blocking her in place with his body, though, and she didn’t want to get any closer to him. He pulled her ponytail back, and she was forced to look up at him.

“You need a real man, honey. You don’t look like you’ve been getting any for a while. Just say the word, and I’ll pound your pussy good.”

He stretched out the last word until she wanted to throw up, but she wasn’t going to show him that. When Oliver came back (yes, _when_ ) they were going to have a serious conversation about self-defence, but right now, she had to get out of this one on her own. She brought her arms in front of her and managed to propel them into a shove, catching him off guard, and he was forced to take a few steps backward.

“You touch me, and I’ll scream so loud they’ll hear me in Hong Kong!”

Felicity was done knuckling under to this piece of filth. He just smirked.

“Given a choice between me and you, who d’you think is more important to Reiter? And who’s going to get shot in the head for disrupting his operation?”

She took a deep breath and allowed the rage to carry her away. She didn’t even bother to lower her voice.

“Don’t you get it? I don’t care!”

She yelled out the last few words, turned on her heel, and stalked away. The other guard in the field was a kid who looked younger and less hardened than the others – he was gaping at her like he’d seen a ghost. She looked at him sourly. He’d be no help if Conklin really lost his mind and just pushed her down on her back in the field. She could scream as loud as she liked – it would take a minute or two for the other, more reasonable (as reasonable as drug-running mercenaries could be) guards to come and stop him. Who’s to say they’d stop him, anyway? Maybe they’d join in, and make an excuse to Reiter later. Her eyes stung at the last thought. Stop it, Felicity. Just stop. She put her head down and worked steadily, ignoring everyone and everything around her. At sunset, she hid a rock in the pocket of her pants.

Walking back to their hut, Felicity noticed that Tatiana was keeping close to her. She sighed. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate the thought, but there wasn’t much Tatiana could do for her. When the other guy had a gun, there weren’t many options left. They got back to the hut, and Felicity lay down on her side immediately, gripping the rock firmly.

She fell into an uneasy doze – every tiny noise, and there were plenty of them, caused her eyes to fly wide open as she strained her ears to try and figure out what it had been. It was getting colder on the island, and every night it got more difficult to drop off – jumping up at every sound didn’t help, either. It must have been in the middle of the night when a hand landed on her shoulder, shaking her awake.

This time, there was no slow moment of transition between sleep and waking – her eyes flew open and she rolled over, swinging the rock in a huge arc towards Oliver’s startled face. Thank goodness his reflexes were faster than she’d ever seen – he managed to block her, but she’d already dropped the rock, and flung her arms around his neck.

“You’re alive!”

She was crying and didn’t know why. It was relief, she decided. Relief that Conklin couldn’t get to her now, that she was safe again. No other reason.

Oliver grabbed her by the shoulders and looked her deep in the eyes.

“What happened? What did he do?”

Felicity felt kind of mesmerised – his eyes were _so_ blue.

“Has anyone ever told you that your eyes are really intense? And kind of hypnotic?”

Oliver blinked a little, raising his eyebrows. Felicity replayed what she’d said and flushed, biting her lower lip.

“I mean, nothing. Much. Just talk. Nasty talk. And he followed me when I went to the little girls’ room. Not that it’s an actual room, just some trees.”

Felicity happened to glance at him, and realised he looked half furious, half indulgent. The first part was for Conklin, but what was the second?

An annoyed complaint came from the Asian ladies contingent – even though it wasn’t English, she could tell the gist from the tone; probably a variation on ‘we’re trying to sleep, here’. Oliver answered sharply, in the same language. This time it was her turn to raise an eyebrow.

“Mandarin. I . . . uh . . . speak a little. Listen, we’ll talk tomorrow, usual time, ok?”

She nodded, and settled down on her side as he slunk out. I sure love to watch him walk away, a sleepy part of her thought, before she told herself to shut up.

The next morning went by much as usual – she heard that Oliver was off showing Reiter the place the guy had taken him to, and obviously Conklin went along. When people dropped tools for lunch, Oliver was there, and she got up and followed him out of camp. Conklin was staring at them, as usual, but she ignored him. She didn’t want to provoke him more than she did by, you know, _existing_. So she kept her eyes down until they reached the forest, which was when she saw the massive bruise on Oliver’s face.

“What the hell is that?”

Oliver was setting up some sort of trap on the path, and looked up in mild surprise, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Your face?”

“Oh, that. I asked Constantine – the guy who took me – to make it look like I tried to stop him escaping.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Men.”

He didn’t answer, but she saw a little half-smile appear on his face. She decided she had to know, right now, how come he’d become buddies with the guy who forced him out of the camp at gunpoint.

“What the hell was that all-“

“Tell me what happened with-“

They spoke at the same time, and stared at each other. Felicity was blushing. She decided to go first.

“I went to . . . pee . . . and he was waiting for me when I finished. He said I needed a real man. To . . . “

She made a series of gestures in the air. She wasn’t sure what they were supposed to represent, but found herself unable to say “pound my pussy” out loud. It wasn’t like she was a virgin, come on, she thought. Luckily, Oliver was there, grabbing her flailing hands. She looked at him gratefully.

“To fuck me. Only what he said was worse. Also, he kind of suggested that he didn’t believe we were, you know . . . doing it.” Seriously, Felicity? ‘Doing it’? What are you, twelve?

Oliver’s face darkened.

“I should have killed him when I got here.”

Felicity shook her head frantically.

“No, no, you can’t do that. He’s like, Reiter’s BFF, or something.”

Oliver looked blank. She bristled.

“Do _not_ try to tell me you don’t know what that is- oh! You’re messing with me!”

“Maybe a little.”

She gestured for him to go ahead with his story, and he sighed. They’d reached what she was considering “their clearing”, and he threw his backpack on the ground, after getting an MRE out for her. She started heating it up as she listened. What a bizarre tale it was. Felicity wasn’t sure she believed _any_ of it.

“So, he can do magic.”

“Yeah.”

“And he found this secret passage.”

“Uh huh.”

“And he gave you a magical tattoo.”

Oliver lifted his shirt and she gawked at the Chinese characters on his abs. For all she knew, he’d gotten the tatt at some back-alley tattoo parlor in Hong Kong.

“How do you know that doesn’t just say: No. 35 Kung Pao Chicken?”

Oliver’s lips twitched.

“I don’t.”

“I thought you said you speak Chinese?”

“Mandarin. And anyway, speaking isn’t reading. Or writing.”

Felicity nodded, and moved closer to him to stare at the characters some more. There wasn’t the tell-tale redness of a new tattoo – not that she’d ever had any, being Jewish and all. Though there had been a time of teenage rebellion when she wanted nothing more than to ink a huge pi symbol across her lower back. Thank God for poverty, she often thought. She moved a bit closer. What was it for? And had he really just got it yesterday?

“Felicity . . .”

His voice sounded weird – a bit choked off. She looked up, puzzled, and then realized what she was doing – kneeling in front of him, exactly like she was going to . . . oh, dear God. She backed away, quickly, muttering apologies. He had a little colour in his face, just above his cheekbones. She buried her face in her food, and he went off to check in with his overlords, or whoever. Though who was she kidding? The tech was clearly from some branch of US military, or military intelligence.

Oliver didn’t stay long. He’d just come back and settled down to eat the peanut m&ms she’d taken out of the pack for him, when a flock of birds burst out of the forest, exactly where the path to the camp was. She looked at him in shock. That was where he’d been setting up all the traps, wasn’t it? He put a finger to his lips, and waited a few seconds. He seemed to be listening for something, and clearly he heard it, though she didn’t. Oliver’s voice sounded like he was trying hard to stay calm, but it wasn’t working out for him.

“Someone’s coming.”

Oliver got up and took out his gun, but she was ahead of him, for once, and put her hand on his arm, shaking her head.

“I have a better idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is Felicity's p.o.v, but we'll see some more Constantine in the next chapter.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos and comments!
> 
> So, just a reminder - in the Constantine episode, there's a magical threshold (sure) with a carving which says: "Only for the pure of heart." Constantine thinks Oliver can't pass over it. He's wrong.

Oliver knew he’d never forget the look on Constantine’s face as he casually stepped over the carving on the threshold – oh yeah, for the pure of heart only, he thought. Suck on that, weird British guy. So he wasn’t sure why, seconds later, he was saving this guy’s life. Waller was always calling him sentimental – maybe she was right.

Then, later, when Constantine offered to help him escape the island, he could have kicked himself for not having dragged Felicity with them, somehow. Pointless bellyaching about it now, anyway. He refused the offer, though he couldn’t meet Constantine’s eyes, and mumbled something about the slave workers who were trapped here too. Constantine gave him a sceptical look.

“So, it’s got nothing to do with a tiny blonde bird who does all the work on her knees?”

Oliver answered without thinking, and then cursed himself.

“She can’t see without her glasses- I mean-“

Constantine nodded sagely.

“Yes, all those poor workers.”

Oliver flushed. Constantine let him stew for a few seconds, then clapped him on the shoulder.

“Just havin’ a laugh, mate. Listen, sometimes I get a feelin’ about a bloke, right? No, don’t look at me like that, though I’d be up for it if you are, fit lad like you.”

Oliver tried to work all this out in his head – he felt like he needed subtitles with this guy.

“Are you making a pass at me? ‘Cause I’m flattered, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not gay.”

Constantine gave him a sharp grin.

“More’s the pity. No. When I say I get a feelin’, I mean something about your future, something that’s waiting for you . . .” His words were ridiculous, Oliver thought, but his attitude was pretty convincing.

“So, you’re what . . . a psychic?” Oliver tried not to make his scepticism so obvious.

“Take too long to explain what I am, mate, besides what’s on my card,” he answered, rolling up his sleeves further.

Oliver hadn’t noticed the tattoo on Constantine’s right arm before. There were four Chinese characters, but Oliver had no idea what they meant. Constantine put that weird metal staff to his own arm, and the tattoo vanished, like it had been sucked up into the staff. Just as Oliver had gotten over watching that impossibility happen, he was ordered to lift his shirt, and the same tattoo was burnt into him. He looked at the new markings on his abdomen and glared at Constantine.

“The fuck did you just do to me?”

Constantine laughed. He’d got out a piece of paper and was writing something down.

“Now, that,” he said, pointing to Oliver’s new ink, “is a cleansing spell. This,” he continued, giving Oliver the bit of torn notepaper, “is what you say to unlock it. Don’t read it out loud until you need it.”

Oliver felt like he was in some kind of waking nightmare.

“When will I need it?”

Constantine shrugged.

“You’ll know when it happens.”

“What about Reiter?”

“Don’t worry about him. He thinks he has a handle on the darkness in this island – he’s just makin’ himself weaker, like. You have to fight magic when you’re using it. You have to fight it all the time.” Constantine noticed Oliver’s blank look. “Using magic, real magic, isn’t like . . . it’s not like drinking a bottle of wine – it’s like a bottle of wine that drinks you back.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Oliver answered, making sure that ‘and it sounds like bullshit’ was implied, too.

Constantine snorted with laughter, and Oliver shook his head.

Driving back to the camp, massaging his aching jaw, Oliver looked at the shiny red jewel Constantine had given him to fool Reiter. He hoped it would be enough. Also, he hoped he wasn’t too late – his worry about Felicity had only grown as the hours went by. When he arrived, it was already dark, and it took him even more time to explain everything to Reiter. On the other hand, Conklin was there - he had the usual sneer on his face, but this time there was some anger, too. He had to wait for everyone to go to sleep before he could check on Felicity, and when she greeted him with a rock he expected the worst. So he was relieved when she told him what had happened, though he still wanted to tear Conklin limb from limb. He couldn’t believe he had to spend the next morning giving Reiter a tour of the secret passageway – he needed to see her. It was like an itch under his skin.

Finally, they came back to the camp, just in time for lunch, and he tried to disguise his eagerness to be with her. He didn’t even look at Conklin as they headed out to the forest – he didn’t trust himself that far. When she told him, more or less, what Conklin had said, he was glad he hadn’t known before. He wouldn’t have been able to resist taking the guy apart.

Oliver told her what had happened with Constantine, and on a stupid impulse, showed her the weird tattoo he’d been given. He’d forgotten how nearsighted she was. She was on her knees in front of him, and kept moving closer, to get a better look. He could feel her breath on his skin, which was pebbling up in response. Any second now she was going to notice his _other_ reaction, which he couldn’t control. Like, at all. Luckily, his croaked “Felicity,” had an immediate effect on her. He waved off her mumbled words – her face was bright red. He was pretty sure his was too.

He went around the bushes, to where the laptop was stashed, hoping she’d think he was contacting Waller. The truth was, he desperately needed to calm down. He couldn’t go back out there like this. He tried to think of something, anything, to take his mind off her parted lips so close to his abs, her eyes looking up at him innocently – he wanted her so badly right now. Dammit. This wasn’t helping. Ok, Waller. No, that was no good. Ball-busting bitch she definitely was, but appearance wise, still a beautiful woman. Shit. He put his hands to his forehead, and thought. Slade Wilson. Yeah. Slade, with his beatings, and electrocution, and tattoos as punishment. He looked down at himself, and sighed. Definitely better now. He wasn’t going to bother with checking in, today.

Oliver had just settled down with the candy she couldn’t eat, when one of his traps went off. The flock of birds wheeled around, and went back into the forest, and he hoped that it was his trap that was faulty, that the hair-trigger had been too sensitive. Then he caught the tail end of a muffled curse, as whoever was in the forest stepped in the small, sandy, sinkhole he’d covered with leaves.

Someone was coming, and all his plans were for nothing. It could only be one person. Oliver came to a decision, and got up quickly, taking out his gun, but she jumped up, moving faster than he’d ever seen her move before, and shook her head.

“I have a better idea.”

He braced himself to stop her if she tried to run – beyond the clearing was still littered with landmines. She didn’t run, though. Instead, she unzipped her pants, and hooked her fingers in her panties, pushing her clothes down, and stepping out of them. He managed to avert his eyes just in time, wondering when he’d fallen asleep and what had brought on this weird (amazing, his brain said; beautiful and spectacular) dream. A voice in his mind was laughing nastily at him, and he ignored it. Felicity was lying on the ground now, and she gestured to him impatiently, as the rustling and cursing from the forest drew ever closer.

“Come on, Oliver! Get on top of me!”

Wondering whether he’d wake up if he pinched himself, he dropped to his knees between her spread legs, still looking straight ahead, though it was a strenuous effort.

“Take your pants off!” Her tone hinted that the word ‘moron’ had been left off the end of that sentence under great duress.

Oliver pushed his pants and boxers to his knees and froze. Nothing about this situation – the terror for both their lives, the clinical nature of the whole encounter, his general dislike of an audience during sex – none of this was going to affect his erection. Any second now, she’d . . . notice it, and kick him. Again. Instead, she reached up and pulled at his shoulder, trying to get him on top of her. He felt like his whole body was locked in place.

“Stop being such a pussy and act like you’re putting it in!” Felicity sounded like she’d reached the end of her endurance.

For a moment, words stopped having meaning. Then he finally managed to move, and dropped to cover her, supporting himself on his elbows. He could feel her huffing breaths on his face, as he resolutely stared past her at the grass they were lying on. He managed a thrust, just as a final huge rustle signalled that whoever was checking on them had emerged from the forest. Felicity had angled them so that their hips were partially hidden by his backpack, and just then she cried out, causing his cock to harden even more. He continued the charade, wondering just how long he’d have to do it. God, she was better at this than him. He dropped his head, acting like he was really getting into it, and in reality trying hard not to come. He was sure he’d brushed her thigh a couple of times, and cringed, hoping she hadn’t noticed. He didn’t dare look at her to find out, and instead kept pumping, managing an occasional grunt. Her whimpers and moans kept getting louder, almost like she was having fun with this. With the acting, of course. There was no way she was enjoying having him on top of her. Was there?

Just then, a voice interrupted them.

“Ain’t that a sight for sore eyes.” Conklin’s sarcasm was almost palpable.

Finally, _finally_ , Oliver could get off her. She gave a little shriek as he sprang up, pulling his pants up with one hand while lunging at Conklin with the other.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Oliver knew he sounded furious, because he was. Even this – his rage at Conklin, his worry about what the guy wanted – still didn’t affect his hard-on.

Conklin gestured towards Felicity with his chin. “Looks like you can’t keep the lady happy. Need a hand?”

Oliver saw red. He was about to take a swing, when a small hand landed on his arm. He glanced to his side – Felicity had put her clothes back on, and was looking at him, worried. Then she glared at Conklin.

“I’m plenty happy. Plenty.” She turned back to Oliver, got on tiptoes, and kissed him. Her lips were trembling, but she hid it well. “We’ll finish later, baby.” She even sounded a bit sultry there, he thought in disbelief. I’m going to be hard _forever_.

Conklin’s eyes narrowed. “Reiter called a meeting. He wadn’t thinking of your booty call.”

Felicity walked ahead of them through the forest, swinging her hips more than he’d ever seen her do. He groaned, inside. He knew she was being defiant and all. But he didn’t think she realised what effect she was having on him. Then he almost stopped dead. What was he thinking? There wasn’t anything real between them. There _couldn’t_ be. She was a prisoner here, and he spent a good portion of his days keeping her that way.

Except . . . he was completely gone. More than he’d ever been – more than Laurel, than Sara, than Shado. This was it, the real thing. The phrase struck a chord in his memory, and he remembered overhearing a conversation between his father and Thea, once. He could still hear his father’s voice, reassuring his sister, who’d watched some Disney film or other, and had gotten worried about true love, and how you’d know if it was real. If Thea had asked _him,_ he’d probably have muttered something about her being too young for that stuff, while making a secret resolution to beat up anyone who even looked at his baby sister, who wasn’t allowed to date until she was . . . oh, at least thirty. She’d never ask his mom, or at least, she wouldn’t have then. His dad, though, always had time for Thea. He’d just listened patiently, and explained, in that gentle way he had with his daughter, that when it’s real, you just know. As Oliver watched Felicity walk away, he knew. It was real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, hope you liked Felicity's idea!
> 
> The magic tattoo is going to have a different function than it has on the show.
> 
> Oh, and "bird" is Constantine's (Scouse) slang for girl or woman - it has nothing to do with any canaries. Sorry, but the Lances aren't going to be in this story.
> 
> What Constantine says about magic is something I got from a Terry Pratchett novel - I'm sure I got the quote wrong, but that was the general idea.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for sticking with this story - sorry this chapter took so long (computer problems, life problems, ugh).

Felicity was worried. Cold, hungry, uncomfortable – all those things described her at the moment. Worried took number one, though. She tossed and turned on the blanket which had been her bed for the last few weeks, and told her stomach to shut up. Not having finished her lunch was the least of her problems at the moment.

She hadn’t seen Oliver again after they were, eh, _interrupted_ by Conklin, but there hadn’t been any whispers about another kidnapping, so she guessed he was ok. There was a weirdly efficient rumor mill among the workers, so she’d have heard if something had happened to him. She was worried about . . . something else.

It had seemed like a perfect idea at the time – pretend they were fucking like bunnies, and Conklin would leave them alone. She didn’t know if that part of it had worked – also, maybe flashing the rapist hadn’t been one of her most brilliant ideas. Her main worry, though, was Oliver – he’d been pretty stunned when she took her pants off. For someone with such fast reflexes, it had taken him a few seconds to get with the program.

Then, once he’d got on top of her, she’d realised she’d seriously underestimated what effect it was going to have on _her_ , as well as Oliver. It had been so long since she’d been held, been touched – to have him so close to her, to feel his breath on her face and neck, his body on top of her, radiating heat like a furnace . . . she shivered at the memory. His reaction, then – wow. She’d caught a glimpse, and . . . holy shit. Pretty impressive. She blushed, glad that it was pitch dark in their hut, pretty sure that what she was thinking about was all over her face.

She turned over one last time, telling herself she wasn’t moving again. She was going to get some sleep, and would straighten things out with Oliver during lunch. If he actually came for her, in spite of the fact that she’d acted like she was losing her mind- came for her? Really, Felicity? Now she was even thinking innuendo? Sleep. Now.

Felicity sleepwalked through the next morning, yawning so much that Tatiana started giving her worried looks. Then, when everyone stopped for lunch, she wandered past Oliver, who had to clear his throat loudly before she noticed him. He narrowed his eyes at her, and she yawned again, and headed towards the forest. They went towards the clearing in silence. She was still wondering how to broach the subject of her impromptu sex party when Oliver’s voice woke her out of a semi-daze.

“Are you ok?”

When she looked at Oliver, he was staring at her in that intense way he had. Her mind caught up with the question. Then she yawned, this time so widely it was almost painful.

“I didn’t get much sleep last night.” That _wasn’t_ what she’d intended to say, dammit!

His brows creased. “I don’t . . . you didn’t finish eating.”

“Yeah,” she said tiredly. “No, I mean, ugh. Sleeping on the floor is killing my back. And it’s getting colder. Not that you’d notice . . . you’re like a space heater or something . . . “ Too late she realised where she was headed, and tried to cram the words back in.

His face looked even more worried. “Felicity-“

“No – wait.” She raised a hand, while trying to work out what she was going to say. They’d arrived in the clearing by then, and he was looking at her, more puzzled than ever. “I want to apologize to you.”

“What?” He looked dumbstruck. “Why?”

“I called you a pussy. Apart from the fact that I don’t usually go for gendered insults, but I’m blaming it on the general situation here, and I should have explained the plan before, not that we had the time.” Felicity paused for breath, and lost her train of thought. She looked up, and Oliver was still staring at her, eyes wide.

“I’m the one who should be apologizing to you,” he continued.

This time, she felt like she’d been clubbed. “Huh?” Oh, yes. Very eloquent.

He had his fingers to his forehead, like he was trying to transmit his thoughts to her directly, and she realised he often did that, when he was really lost for words. She found it endearing. He was still talking, explaining what he thought he had to apologize for.

“Yesterday, when we- when you pretended. It was a good idea, by the way. Just. I got.” He bit his lip, frustrated, it looked like. She decided to put him out of his misery.

“Hey.” She put a hand on his arm. “I get it. You’re a guy. I took my clothes off.” She shrugged. “It happens. No big.” Shit. “What I mean is . . . very, very big. Enormous.” She made a gesture with her hand, and he caught it. She was too embarrassed to look at his face, sure that hers was purple. He squeezed her hand and she chanced a look. His lips were twitching, and the mortified look was fading away.

“I didn’t look,” he said, putting on a prim voice, “because I’m a gentleman.”

She deliberately made her eyes wide, fake impressed. She leaned closer.

“I saw everything,” she murmured. He shook his head, and then sighed. She decided to change the subject. “Do you think it worked . . . on Conklin?”

Oliver gave a sideways look that was almost shy.

“He’s stopped talking shit whenever he sees me looking at you,” he said with a shrug that tried to be casual.

She’d caught the slight wince, though, as he probably realised what he’d let slip. So, Oliver looked at her, did he? Felicity didn’t know why, but that made her feel . . . good.

As they emerged from the forest, she stumbled. That wasn’t unusual, in itself. It happened, a lot, since she’d _lost_ her glasses. Sometimes she fell flat on her ass, sometimes she fell on her face, and sometimes . . . sometimes Oliver caught her arm, and held her up, just like he did the time he stopped her from jumping off a cliff. Except then, she’d been terrified and in shock, and it had been nothing more than a kindness.

Now, she felt his touch with a kind of erotic charge, and she couldn’t hold back a full-body shiver. She looked up at him, and noticed he was biting his lip, his eyes heated. She moved closer to him, and again, his body seemed to be giving off heat – she couldn’t resist moving a hand up to his face. Just as she was about to touch him, he grabbed it, as if to stop her. But she was too far gone. She stretched up as far as she could, and kissed him, like she had yesterday. She pulled back, looking him in the eyes, and she could see the exact moment he broke, letting go of her hand to cradle her face and return the kiss. He kept it chaste, closed mouth, but she wanted more, and wound her arms round his neck as he practically lifted her off her feet. She opened her mouth, and he slid his tongue inside, and they were off – it was warm, wet, and wonderful, and it went on until she was breathless. They broke apart, staring at each other. She moved in for another kiss, but he put his hands on her shoulders, and shook his head.

“Felicity . . . we can’t – I can’t.” He looked regretful, but determined.

“Why not?” That . . . was kind of whinier than she’d intended. Felicity blushed, but forged on, staring him in the eyes.

“Most of the day I’m holding a gun on you, Felicity!” Oliver sounded half regretful and half annoyed that she wasn’t getting it. “I’m pretending to be pressuring you into sex for protection – how do I know you don’t feel obliged to me, like it’s - payment?”

Felicity opened her mouth for an angry rebuttal, and then closed it again. He looked so earnest – did he really think she had Stockholm Syndrome?

“Because . . . I . . . don’t?” She winced. That wasn’t very convincing.

He shook his head.

“You don’t know anything about me, Felicity. Sure, all the surface stuff. But you don’t know the kind of man I was – before.”

Felicity rolled her eyes and huffed. Why was he making so much of it? They weren’t pledging their troth, for fuck’s sake! It was just a kiss. Or maybe it wasn’t, for him. Her eyes widened as the thought hit her, and she tried to school her face into a blank mask. Good thing he was facing away from her, rummaging in his bag for her meal.

She approached him cautiously – his movements were abrupt, jerky. She put a hand on his arm, and he looked up at her. There was a sense of barely restrained passion in his eyes, and she shivered, again. Of course she was attracted to him - who wouldn’t be? She just wasn’t sure if it was more than that. Anyway, how could she be sure this whole place wasn’t messing with her head? Maybe she was subconsciously trying to ensure his protection – if it was true, that was a nasty rotten trick her subconscious was playing on her.

“I know the kind of man you are now, Oliver.” She kept her tone measured and calm. “You didn’t need to help me. You could have just walked away. Even when you helped me, you could have just . . . uh . . . helped yourself. No one would have stopped you. But you didn’t. You’re a good man.”

He blinked a couple of times, and gave a weird huffing sound, like a half laugh, muttering something which sounded like, ‘the pure of heart, right?’ She looked at him, cocking her head, and he waved it off.

“Listen. Here’s the thing.”

She recognised his ‘change of subject’ tone, and was about to smile, when she stopped herself, and tried to look attentive. His eyes warmed towards her and his lips twitched like he was suppressing a smile.

“You said you wanted to learn some self-defence moves.”

She nodded frantically, and was disappointed when he shook his head.

“You’re, what, five foot four?” he gauged, looking her up and down.

“Five foot _five_ ,” she bristled. His lips twitched again.

“And you weigh, about . . . a hundred pounds? Before you say anything, you’ve probably lost weight over here. That means you’ve lost strength, too.” He grabbed her by the shoulders and stared her in the eyes – a tiny voice in her brain was half lamenting that he was cheating, half revelling in the feeling of his strong (and big, she moaned; really big) hands gripping her. “Felicity, you can’t win against Conklin! You can’t fight him hand to hand – not after a few days training, on nothing more than a starvation diet. It took me months to build up strength and muscle tone after a few weeks here, and we don’t have months.”

She nodded, disappointed. She was even more disappointed when he let go of her. Maybe she should have held out for longer.

“You need to learn to fire a gun,” he continued.

She wrinkled her brows. “Target practice?”

He shook his head.

“No – you can’t hit anything without your glasses. And sound carries on this island – they’d hear it in camp.” He took his handgun out of the holster, and racked the slide to eject a round, then took the magazine out, and started prying the individual bullets out. “You need to get used to the weight of the gun, and the idea of actually firing it. So you’re going to do some dry firing.”

He gave her the gun, and she turned it over in her hands. It was heavier than she’d expected. She held it in one hand, and stretched her arm out, like she’d seen on tv, looking at him uncertainly. He walked behind her, and started adjusting her stance, pulling her elbow closer to her body, and lifting her other arm to support the gun.

“A two handed stance is better right now, Felicity. And if you hold the gun closer to your body, it’ll be harder for anyone to take it from you.”

He was standing behind her, and she could feel the heat radiating off him, his breath on her neck as he loomed over her. His lips were suddenly close to her ear, and she shivered.

“Now try firing,” he murmured, and his breath tickled the fine hairs behind her ear, causing her to shiver again.

She pulled the trigger, and tensed, only to hear a click.

“Again,” he said, and she fired and fired and fired. He moved away from her, and she felt his loss as a sudden current of cool air surrounding her.

“Keep doing it until your right hand gets tired, then try with your left. I have to go check in.”

As she pulled the trigger, over and over, she kept going back to the kiss, and what he’d said about it. She didn’t _feel_ like she was being pressured to . . . kiss him. The whole fake sex thing had been her idea, she’d taken off her clothes without a second thought, and she really hadn’t been bothered by the fact that he’d had a pretty obvious erection during the whole thing. Why hadn’t it, though?

Every time Conklin so much as looked at her, she felt her stomach churn, but Oliver practically waved his dick in her face, and she was fine with it. More than fine. She wanted him. She wanted him to want her. Maybe it was a product of the messed up situation, and maybe it wasn’t, but she wanted, needed to know if he felt the same way. Her hand was beginning to ache, anyway, and she didn’t want to end up with a blister she couldn’t explain away.

Felicity went around the bushes to find Oliver sitting on the ground, legs outstretched, leaning back on his arms, staring at the laptop.

“Are you avoiding me?” she asked, trying to keep the whiny tone out of her voice.

Oliver looked surprised, and maybe a bit sheepish.

“No?” he answered, though he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I think ar- I mean, my people – are avoiding _me_.”

Good catch, Oliver. Though I still heard a bit of that. She sighed, and crossed her arms, cocking her head. Oliver flushed and looked away. So, he liked that, did he? She came to a decision, moving quickly before he could stop her, and straddled his legs, settling in his lap.

“Felicity . . . this is a bad idea . . . “ As protests went, it was delivered without too much strength behind it.

“No, it isn’t,” she said, while winding her arms round his neck, and dropping a kiss on his lips. “I know what I want,” she murmured, “and it’s you.”

She pulled back slightly and caught the moment when his eyes heated up. He pulled her closer and crushed her against him, and this time the kiss was furious and rough. God, it was good. His hands were all over her back, and she grabbed one and put it firmly on her ass. He moaned into her mouth and squeezed her, pulling her even closer so that she was flush against him. She could feel the ridge of his cock pressing into her thigh, and his heart was thundering against her chest. They broke apart, gasping. He tried to push her hips away, but she didn’t let him.

“Now you know why we can’t kiss, Felicity . . .” he groaned, as she rubbed herself up against him.

“Oh, I don’t know. I could give you a hand,” she said, stressing the word, and waggling her fingers.

He moaned again, and dropped his head to her shoulder.

“Don’t say ‘hand’.”

She opened her mouth to speak and he gave her a mock glare.

“No other words beginning with ‘b’ either.”

She shrugged and tried to act nonchalant as she gave him what she hoped was a flirty look. It would have worked, she was sure of it, except he caught a glimpse of something over her shoulder. She looked, and saw some text on the laptop screen, before his hand covered her eyes.

“Go and finish your lunch, Felicity.” His voice was so different when he had to deal with his agency, whoever they were. She nodded, unwilling to argue the point.

When they went back to the camp through the forest, he was pensive and silent, at first.

“Did they tell you when they’re coming?”

He shook his head, and stopped, turning to her.

“I need you to listen to me. When it happens, I’ll give you my gun, and you have to go back to your hut and wait there for them. The agency,” he paused then, putting his hands on his head and rubbing, visibly thinking. “The agency is called ARGUS. I can’t tell you anymore. I shouldn’t have told you that.”

She nodded, unsure of how to react.

“You can’t mention me,” he continued. “Not at all, Felicity.”

“I don’t understand . . .”

“I didn’t come here because I chose to. They’re experts in forcing people to work for them, blackmailing them. You’d just be a pawn to hold over my head.” He cradled her face in his hands, staring into her eyes, and she felt herself melt. “I can’t let anything happen to you.”

“But how will I . . . how will we . . .” She wanted to ask how they’d find each other again, but wasn’t even sure if that’s what _he_ wanted.

Oliver pulled her towards him and this time he was the one who started the kiss, plunging into her mouth with a certain rough despair. He broke it off and crushed her to him, whispering in her ear.

“I will find you, Felicity. Promise me you’ll wait.”

She sniffed, overcome.

“I promise.”

He gave a shaky laugh.

“What, no movie dialogue?”

She sniffled again, blinking back tears.

“Now that you mention it,” she murmured, trying for light and breezy, “I do have something in mind . . .”

He squeezed her so tight, she could hardly breathe.

“Say it to me when we meet again,” he answered.

That was when Felicity knew. It would be soon. Maybe even that same day. She was seized with a sudden terror, and wanted nothing more than to stay in the forest, or go back to the clearing and never leave. She looked at him, and he was looking back at her, expectant. So she straightened her shoulders and raised her head, and walked out of the forest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I'd manage to cram more in this chapter, but I had to leave some stuff out - it's already longer than I anticipated.
> 
> This time it's Oliver doing the (inadvertent) movie quoting, heh!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your lovely kudos and comments - I'm really grateful for the support for this story, what with the flashbacks on Season 4 getting worse and worse.
> 
> So, this is the bit which should have come at the end of the last chapter, but needed a bit more work. Thanks for your patience!
> 
> Spoilers in end note.

Felicity’s walk towards the field, which, in her head, was in slow motion and had stirring music in the background, was interrupted when Oliver pulled her back towards him. She looked up, opening her mouth to ask him what was wrong, when he shocked her with a deep, long, and passionate kiss. When he finally let her breathe again, she managed to gasp out a query.

“What about the workers? Conklin?” Really, she just wanted to kick herself. Who cared about those guys? Just kiss me again, she thought.

His face was flushed, and his eyes were closed as he leaned his forehead against hers.

“They can’t see us yet.” Oliver was speaking absent-mindedly, his hands tangled in her ponytail. “I’m finding it hard to let you go.”

“Yep,” she answered. “I noticed.”

He tried to suppress a smile and failed. Then he glanced around, making sure no-one was looking their way. He passed her the gun and she put it in the small of her back, hooking it into the waistband of her cargoes.

“I thought-“

“Better now, when no-one can see us,” he hissed. “The safety’s on. Just make sure you take it off before you try use it.”

Oliver cupped her face in his hands and stared deep into her eyes, like he was trying to memorize her face.

“Hey, lover boy!” Conklin’s hated voice interrupted whatever Oliver was going to say next.

His hands dropped to her shoulders, squeezing for a few seconds, almost as if he wanted the imprint of his fingers to stay there after he was gone. Conklin stared at them with his usual smirk.

“Reiter needs to see you.”

Felicity turned on her heel and walked carefully back to the field, conscious of the heavy gun in her waistband, and the two men staring as she walked away. She wasn’t really worried, she told herself. Oliver would go to speak to Reiter and then he’d come to watch her work until the sun went down.

For the rest of the afternoon, the guards in the field strolled up and down, trying to look busy. As Felicity worked on sorting the product from the weeds, she still tried to convince herself she wasn’t worried about Oliver, but this time it didn’t work. How long was this meeting with Reiter, anyway?

When Tatiana lifted her head and pointed at the horizon, Felicity thought Oliver was coming, at first. Which was ridiculous, in retrospect – it wasn’t like Tatiana cared about Oliver, at all.

This was something else. It was like a scene from a Vietnam movie, Felicity thought – first one helicopter, then another, and another. She stood there, stunned that it was actually happening. The helicopters buzzed their camp, and the sense of unreality kept her frozen in place for a couple of seconds. The first gunshots woke her out of the daze, and she grabbed Tatiana’s arm.

“Come on! We have to get to our hut!”

Tatiana followed her, the same expression of stunned surprise on her face that Felicity knew she must have had, a few seconds ago. Then she froze.

“No, wait! I must find Vlad!”

Felicity didn’t let go of her arm.

“He’ll be fine, Tatiana! But we won’t – especially if the guards think we’ll make good hostages!”

She’d heard what Oliver _hadn’t_ been saying when he told her about these ARGUS people – anyone who tried the old ‘let us go or we shoot these women’ tactic with them would probably get a shrug, and ‘go ahead’ in response.

It was kind of a miracle, if she believed in that sort of thing, that they met no-one who tried to stop them as they raced towards their hut. All the guards seemed to have urgent business elsewhere, and all the gunfire seemed to be coming from the command part of the camp. When they stumbled through the doorway, Felicity wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be doing. Should they keep their heads down, wait for rescue, what? Would anyone even find them here?

Felicity pulled the gun out of her waistband and looked at it for a second, before carefully sliding the safety catch to ‘off’. She glanced up and was transfixed by Tatiana’s wide-eyed stare.

“Felicity!” She’d never heard her sound that shocked before. “Where did you get that?”

“Yeah, _Felicity_ ,” a voice from the doorway echoed, “who gave you that gun?”

Conklin rolled his eyes as he advanced into the hut. “Do I even need to ask?”

Tatiana didn’t hesitate. She went for Conklin, who, Felicity noticed, wasn’t carrying any weapon, for once. But he still had his fists, and no hesitation about punching Tatiana in the jaw. She went down without a sound, and Conklin turned to Felicity with a smirk. He started moving towards her and she backed away.

“Reiter . . . he said you couldn’t do this . . . “ In her head she was screaming, you’ve got a gun, use it! Out loud, her voice was small and weak, not much more than a whisper.

“Reiter’s dead, sweetheart.” Every second that passed brought him closer to her. “That magic crap of his – I told him it was no good. Started his mumbo jumbo as soon as the choppers arrived, zigged when he shoulda zagged, and BOOM!” She jumped. “Brain soup _all over_.”

The gun was between her and Conklin, held close to her chest, pointed at him. Her finger was on the trigger, but she couldn’t pull it.

“Oliver . . .” she whispered, not sure if she was calling him or saying his name as a talisman, to put between her and Conklin.

“He’s dead too,” Conklin said, relishing the effect his casual words had on her. “Or near enough. Those guys in the choppers took him down, first thing. Now, how about you put that gun down. We both know you’re never gonna use it.”

Felicity had to ignore what he’d said, to put it out of her head completely, because now he was close enough that she could feel his stinking breath on her face. She tried to back away some more, but he grabbed her ponytail and forced her head back.

“I told you, didn’t I? You just couldn’t be nice.” Conklin sounded like he’d lost his mind.

He was holding her in place with her head cruelly wrenched back, and she knew she had to act soon. In the end, she was lucky that he didn’t even try to take the gun from her, more intent on opening his pants with the hand which wasn’t pulling her hair.

As he started forcing her to her knees, she pulled the trigger for the first time. The gun bucked in her hand like a living thing, but she ignored it, firing over and over and over, until it was empty.

Felicity came out of her fugue, ears ringing from the gunshots, to find herself on her back with Conklin’s dead body crushing her to the ground. His eyes were still open, she realised. He was staring at her accusingly, and for an insane moment she wanted to say she was sorry.

Just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, a harsh voice interrupted her thoughts.

“You inside the hut, state your name and your purpose here!”

Felicity’d had enough. She was _done_.

“My purpose?” The words came out in a shriek. She was surprised she still had the breath for it, what with this dead asshole crushing her chest. “My purpose is being held prisoner, and trying not to be raped! What’s your fucking purpose?”

“Throw your weapon out the door now!”

Who was this moron, anyway?

“I can’t, because there’s a dead rapist on top of me! The gun’s empty, anyway!”

Why was she trying to explain herself? “Listen to me: I’m an American citizen and I want to go home!”

That started out better than it ended, she thought.

A weak voice interrupted this exchange. “I too wish to go home. But I am not American citizen.”

Felicity couldn’t help Tatiana. She couldn’t even turn her head to see if the other woman was hurt. Then she heard footsteps coming closer, and finally she could breathe again, as someone rolled the dead weight off her.

None of the men who were inside the hut offered their names, she noticed. Nor their agency. There were no tags on their combat fatigues, and she managed to give Tatiana a warning look. The first thing they did was take the gun out of her hands, and confirmed it was empty.

“Can someone help my friend?” she pleaded. Tatiana was looking punchy. “He knocked her out.”

The two men with the matching blank expressions and insignia-less fatigues exchanged a look, and then one of them called for a medic.

“My name is Felicity Smoak.” After she’d worked on Oliver’s laptop, she’d had an idea of the kind of tech knowledge these guys had. Giving them a false name would be pointless, and dangerous. She was going to control her temper, and fly under the radar; just someone unimportant, with a ridiculous combination of good and bad luck.

The lead guy looked at her, suspicion all over his face, not seeming to care about her name, all of a sudden.

“How did you get this weapon?” He practically barked the words at her.

She stared at him in disbelief, all her good resolutions disappearing into a red mist of rage. Oh, this _motherfucker_.

“How’d you think I got it? He asked me to the prom, and I said yes!” She was vaguely conscious that her voice had risen a couple of octaves.

Felicity could feel his eyes coolly raking over her, gauging how much of her performance was that – an act. She wasn’t sure it was, though. She felt like she couldn’t take anymore, that any second now she’d start screaming and be unable to stop.

The man seemed to come to a decision.

“You’re in shock. Come on, let’s get you out of here.” Yeah, that’s right, asshole, she thought. You _better_ back down. The timid part of her wondered whether she should stop channelling Xena now, especially as she didn’t have a gun anymore.

Tatiana was being checked over by some kind of medic – as soon as he was sure she wasn’t concussed, they all emerged into the sunlight. Felicity couldn’t believe that it was still the same day, and she blinked, dazed, wondering if she was even awake anymore. She was dying to ask after Oliver, but she remembered his warning, which had been confirmed by the attitude shown by these guys.

Conklin’s words came back to her, and she squeezed her eyes shut in denial. There was no way Oliver was dead. No way in hell. She hadn’t believed Conklin’s words for a second – as soon as he’d said that the ARGUS people had taken Oliver down, she’d known he was lying. Oliver was here on their mission – why would they attack him? It must have been a planned ruse, something to fool Reiter’s men into thinking Oliver wasn’t a mole in their organization. Though she found it hard to shake off a niggling thought – why didn’t Oliver warn her, if that was part of the plan? Then she shook it off. No, she wasn’t going to let it keep her awake. Conklin had been lying, and that was that.

As the helicopter lifted off and left the island behind, Felicity finally allowed herself to relax. She was going home, or at least, to Vegas. She could rest there for a while, and wait for Oliver.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the Conklin incident. But I felt that Felicity needed to be the one to take him down - this is the turning point, for her. She's going to be more proactive from now on.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for the kudos and wonderful comments I'm getting!
> 
>  
> 
> _Even though Oliver's left Lian Yu, he's still lost._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> End note contains spoilers for chapter.

They’d explained the situation to him more than once, but he still didn’t understand what was going on. It didn’t help that he couldn’t even remember his own name.

In fact, he couldn’t remember anything before waking up in what looked like a holding cell. How did he even know it was a holding cell, though? How could he even know what a holding cell was, when he looked himself in the mirror without even the faintest spark of recognition?

He was in an office, facing a woman across a desk. He looked down again at the document in front of him. Everything seemed real enough, though how the hell did he know that? Sure, the photo attached to what they told him was his file, was in fact of the man he saw in the mirror every morning since he’d woken up. All the distinguishing features were the same. He had matched every burn mark, every scar. Even the tattoos matched the description in the file – the Chinese characters on his abs, and the dragon tattoo on his back. Still, something wasn’t right.

The first problem was the name.

“John Smith?” he’d scoffed. “You’re seriously trying to tell me that my name is John Smith.”

“That’s not your real name, of course,” the woman said, gently. He got the impression that this tone was not something she was used to. Her name, she’d told him, was Amanda Waller. Then she gave him a sharp look, almost as if she expected him to say something, to recognize it. There was nothing – no spark, no sudden ‘aha!’ moment, nothing.

“It’s the name you gave us when you volunteered for this project.”

He wanted to cry bullshit, to insist that he’d never volunteered for a thing in his life. How did he know that, though? The answer was that he didn’t. He looked at the file again. It painted a wonderful picture, of someone who wanted to fight for his country, to do anything to combat terrorism, whatever form it took. None of it sounded like him. It wasn’t even the missing memories – he couldn’t _feel_ it.

He looked at the woman again, and wondered how far he could try her patience. The way the men spoke to her showed the truth – they were all terrified of her, and he guessed he should be too. Maybe if he had his memories, he could do that.

“Ms Waller-“

“Just Waller, please.” Aha. There. _That_ was the real woman behind the smiling mask. No social niceties for her. Waller it would be, then.

“So, you had this special drug, which was supposed to control hostile populations, and I volunteered to have you test it on me. Is that right?” He hoped he sounded slightly naive and open, emotions which he wasn’t feeling at the moment.

Waller’s expression didn’t change. It never had, in his admittedly limited three day experience. She nodded.

“Unfortunately, the memory loss was a side effect we did not predict,” she added. “And you did a very thorough job of erasing most of your identity before coming to us, so there’s nothing we can do about that.”

He nodded, looking down at his file. As far as he could see, it was made of one page, most of which was used up in a physical description. He decided to act stupid for a little longer.

“Can’t this drug, like, wear off?”

Waller narrowed her eyes. Maybe he’d overdone the frat boy shtick. There it was again – he knew what a frat boy was. How could he know that, when he couldn’t even remember his parents?

“Unfortunately not. It was designed to be self-renewing, to be effective indefinitely. But that’s not really what you wanted to ask, was it?”

Shit. She was good.

“What _other_ side effects didn’t you know about before you injected me with this – oh, sorry. Before I _volunteered?_ ” He tried to rein in his sarcasm, but he clearly hadn’t succeeded, because one of the men across from him gave him a look, opening his mouth to speak. Waller glanced to the side and shook her head.

“Increased aggression. Redirected sex-drive.” Her tone was matter of fact.

He stared at her, sure his eyes were bulging and his mouth was gaping. _Bullshit_ they didn’t know about this. Also, redirected sex-drive? Redirected to what?

He was on his feet even before he decided to get up. He must be a pretty observant person, he thought – as he rose from his chair, he noticed that the man on Waller’s left was pressing something under the desk, probably some kind of panic button, while the man on her right was reaching for something under the desk, probably a gun. Only Waller did nothing, just kept looking at him. She never lost her composure, he realised.

“I need to get out of here.” His voice rose an octave, and Waller raised an eyebrow.

“Mr Smith . . . John.” She managed to make the name sound real, even though he was positive it was something she’d made up. How could he know that, though? “You don’t know anything about yourself – where will you go?”

He shook his head, unwilling to articulate his thoughts. Ever since he’d woken up, he’d just moved from one room to another, from a blank, featureless cell, along sterile corridors, to a blank featureless office. The sound was deadened in every room, and it was starting to dawn on him what kind of place needed extensive soundproofing. It’s so no-one hears you when you scream, a voice in his head kept repeating. He needed to get outside, to see if there still _was_ an outside.

“Please,” he whispered. When he looked up again, Waller was tapping a finger against her lip. He felt like he was under a microscope, being examined with the same cool impersonality as a bacterium.

“Very well.” She wrote a few words on a sheet of paper. “Take him here.”

“But-“ One of the men cringed as he realized he’d just interrupted her. He subsided as she raised her eyebrows, and he didn’t speak again.

The door burst open and two heavily armed men stormed in, putting a bag over John’s head. He tensed, ready to start punching, when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Calm down.” It was Waller, and her voice was soothing. “If you’re leaving, we need to keep our location secret. For security reasons.”

That was fine by him. They dragged him back along the corridors, and through a door, where the sound changed. He was pretty sure there were vehicles all around him: the air was heavy with the smell of diesel and engine oil. He was quickly bundled into a van, and they drove off. After a few minutes the van stopped, and he was pushed out. He pulled the bag off, but he was alone. Somewhere. He looked around him, taking deep breaths – no, he wasn’t in a meadow, but at least it wasn’t the stale, recycled air of wherever he’d just spent the last few days.

Where was he, anyway? It was late at night, he realized – the street was gloomy and nondescript; it could be any street in any major city. Maybe some kind of industrial area? No, wait – there were people wandering back and forth a few blocks away. He looked again, and qualified that assertion. _Women_ were wandering back and forth, and occasionally stopping in front of cars, and getting in.

Huh. It came to him like a brick to the head – he was in a red-light district. He immediately wanted to bash his head against the nearest wall – how could he know what that was, when he didn’t even remember his own name, his mother’s face, his father’s voice?

Still, he knew what was happening here. Also, he felt a twinge of interest. No, none of the working girls looked like they did in the movies (seriously? He could remember movies, now?), but they were women. If he remembered nothing else about himself, he instinctively knew that he hadn’t gotten laid in a long, long time. Was he the kind of guy who used prostitutes? What kind of guy was that, anyway?

He walked faster as he thought, gravitating automatically to one of the younger women – a short blonde, teetering along on impossibly high heels, which, combined with a tiny skirt, made his mouth go dry. Had they even left him any money? He felt in his pockets, and in the back pocket of his cargo pants found a wad of cash.

He strode towards the blonde, even as an insistent voice in his head started getting louder – what the hell was he doing? He needed to find out who he was, what they’d done to him, not get his rocks off! He ignored the protests in his head, and focused on the woman, feeling his skin tighten, and little beads of sweat formed on his forehead. He pictured what she’d feel like, crushed in his arms, her small, soft body pressed against his, how warm her blood would feel over his face when he tore her throat out with his teeth.

He froze. That . . . that wasn’t right. He wanted to fuck her, he didn’t want to . . . to tear into her, open her up with his bare hands, choke the life out of her, watch it draining out of her beautiful blue eyes.

He turned around and staggered to an alleyway, leaning against a wall as he threw up. His whole chest seemed to want to come out of his mouth as he heaved and heaved, and it wasn’t enough. What had they done to him? How could he live like this? He tried once again to imagine having sex with a woman, with anyone, and all he wanted was the blood, the wonderful exhilaration of ending someone’s life with his bare hands.

“Hey mister. You ok?”

He didn’t need to look behind him to realize it was her – the prostitute he’d just imagined tearing to pieces.

“Get away from me.” He tried to yell the words but his throat hurt from the vomiting. He heard the sound of her heels clicking in the alley – but she was coming closer, not moving away. He was going to kill her, and there was nothing he could do to stop himself.

“Please move away, ma’am. We’ll take it from here.” John looked up, bleary-eyed, to see one of the guys who’d brought him here. It dawned on him that this had been a lesson. Waller had wanted him to find out for himself why he couldn’t just leave.

“What the fuck?” The woman sounded pissed off. “This is my corner!”

The second guy came out of the darkened alley, and the two exchanged looks. Please don’t hurt her, John wanted to moan, but was caught in another stomach-wrenching spasm. Then the first man took some notes out of his pocket.

“Here, take it. Now beat it, lady.”

The blonde tossed her head with a sniff and stalked off. John watched her walk away with a feeling of relief, even as a part of him wanted to chase after her and tear her apart. He leaned against the wall, head hanging, and cleared his throat.

“Can we go back now?”

One of the men clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Sure, buddy.” There was pity in his voice.

They didn’t bother putting the hood back over his head on the return journey, so he saw the sign as they drove up to the huge building. A.R.G.U.S. What did it mean? He tried to think for a second, and gave up. What did it matter where he was, anyway? He had nowhere else to go. As he walked towards his cell, he scratched his side, absently. That weird Chinese tattoo had been itching since the moment he’d woken up. First thing in the morning, he’d ask Waller if they could have it lasered off.

The next few months passed in a sense of unreality for John Smith. As if that was his real name. Though in the absence of anything resembling knowledge about himself, that would have to do.

He was made to go for counseling regularly, and was often asked why he'd made no attempt to research himself. There was simply no point. He could never go back. It was clear he'd been turned into a weapon that fired indiscriminately, and, if he still had family, he wasn't going to destroy them.

So he did what he'd apparently volunteered for - dealing with terrorism, though he'd never thought it would be domestic stuff. Also, it seemed weirdly localized to the strange city ARGUS was based in. He was sure there were agents being sent all over the world, but he was kept here. It was like they didn't trust him, or something, he thought sardonically. Why, though? He thought Waller understood that he had no-one to go to. All he had was ARGUS.

Fine, so initially he’d offered a slight resistance to what he was supposed to do – it had been made clear to him that ARGUS was in the business of assassination rather than arrest, or due process. At the risk of sounding whiny and naive, he tried to ask Waller why they couldn’t imprison these terrorists.

“I’m pretty sure that there’s that place – Guantanamo? I think?” Sometimes John wasn’t sure whether he was remembering something real or something he’d seen in a film. Waller nodded, though, so he guessed the prison really existed.

“The problem with prisons, John, is that none of them are escape-proof. And the people we deal with are so dangerous to the general public, that they can never be free again.” Even though Waller sounded perfectly reasonable, the other ARGUS agents, the ones he’d be working with, were frozen in various attitudes of apprehension and terror. Was he the only one who dared question Amanda Waller?

Maybe he was the only one who didn’t care if he lived or died. He still didn’t know why he hadn’t just ended it that night, when he’d found out how messed up he really was. Maybe a deeply buried part of him had hope that someone could fix him, undo what had been done to him. In the meantime, he might as well do something – apparently, killing was something he did well. The doctors called it sense memory, he called it ‘the art of being supremely fucked up’ – whatever you called it, he was good at shooting, hand-to-hand, anything which involved taking people apart. Though he’d thought Waller had lost it when she offered him a bow and arrow. He’d told her he was fine with guns, thanks.

So the weeks and months passed, and he became an ARGUS agent, specialty: wetwork. No, he couldn’t take any credit for knowing what that meant – one of his team members, a guy called Floyd Lawton, had explained it to him. It was standard work, but once in a while, mixed in with run of the mill arsonists, bombers, and assassins, some crazy shit came along. Like the time a local businessman, known by the improbable name of Malcolm Merlyn, turned out to have built an earthquake machine. Smith had looked around the conference table in disbelief. His team looked back at him, faces blank. Waller just had the usual half-smirk on her face.

The thought sometimes came to him that he called them his team, but he suspected they were there to watch him rather than watch out for him, and never more than in situations like this.

Once he’d accepted the fact that a middle-aged businessman was building machines which could destroy a city, he had to come to terms with Waller’s plan to deal with the guy. Waller insisted on shooting, decapitation, and then blowing up the car with his corpse in it. It was almost like they thought he couldn't be killed, or something.

Once the job was done, he and his team-mates watched the local news coverage of the memorial service. A few times, when the cameras picked up on local personalities, Smith felt that he was being watched. One time he looked straight at Waller, but her expression didn’t change. Did she think he was faking the amnesia? In a way he wished he was. Anything would be better than this void in his memories, this blank slate where a family should be.

He thought things would go back to normal once Merlyn had been dealt with, or, at least, as normal as anything ever was, at ARGUS. He’d been wrong about that, though, as he found out during yet another planning meeting.

“So he’s a super-soldier? Like in the movie?” Smith sometimes felt that whatever they’d given him had affected his ability to parse all this shit. That, or this was really fucked-up.

“Not really,” Waller replied. “Slade Wilson injected _himself_ with a super-soldier serum. Unfortunately, the side-effects include paranoia and extreme aggression. And now he’s gathering the disaffected and injecting them too. We suspect he’s attempting to build an army.”

Waller had given him a surreptitious look when she said the guy’s name; and when she’d given him Wilson’s picture. He’d stared at the photo, noting the blank look, the eye-patch, the impression of banked tension, and wished, desperately, that some memory would come back to him. Nothing. It was all gone.

He scratched absently at the tattoo on his side. Nothing worked on the itching, the irritation, the inflamed skin. Not the creams, ointments, antifungals, nothing. They’d even tried to laser the tattoo off, with no result. John wouldn’t have minded, if only it didn’t itch so badly. He tried to focus on the problem at hand.

“About this serum – I assume the chemlab is working on an antidote?” He was pretty sure Waller already had something prepared. She nodded.

“We have something we’d like to try.”

The rest of the meeting was devoted to planning the attack. First they’d deal with the recent additions to this guy’s army, then the man himself. On his way back from the gym, Smith was sure he saw members of his team emerging from Waller’s office. Another meeting he hadn’t been invited to. When he finally faced Slade Wilson, and heard what the man had to say, he realised why.

“I thought you’d be home by now, kid!” Slade Wilson acted like he knew him, and for one crazy second, he wanted to ask the guy his name, where he came from, where home was. Then Lawton backhanded him and told him to shut up, and Smith could see a look of glee on Slade Wilson’s face.

“You don’t know who you are! You’re never going home; you might as well be dead!”

Smith shrugged, and took out his Glock – he’d been given a task, and he was going to carry it out. The mad glint in Slade’s remaining eye intensified.

“You know what, kid? I die happy, because you’re LOST! I die happy, because-“

The gunshot cut Wilson off before he could finish.

After that, the jobs were normal for a few weeks. It was like Waller was trying to break him in gradually, so he wouldn’t even notice that he was on a leash. Well, she was wrong. He _did_ notice. He just didn’t see any point in doing something about it.

The next job was the weirdest yet. Smith’s first inane thought was that the girl in the picture didn’t _look_ like a terrorist.

“A cyber-terrorist,” Waller corrected him. “Apparently, they can look like anyone.”

Smith wasn’t convinced. She was pretty – blonde hair, blue eyes, open smile. He felt his skin heat up and cursed, inwardly. He was on a chemical castration regimen to try to counteract the effect of the drug he’d been dosed with; but if just looking at a photo of a pretty girl could make him react, then that was useless too.

“A cyber-terrorist,” he repeated. “So, is she dangerous?”

“Oh, very,” Waller answered. “ And she has to be dealt with. Permanently.” She paused, looking at the picture with a strange smile playing about her lips. “Ms Felicity Smoak.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I first wanted Waller to choose an ironic code name for Oliver, like 'archer', for example. But 'John Smith' is even more ironic - even amnesiac Oliver thinks it must be fake!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for everyone's support - thank you so much for kudos and comments!
> 
>  
> 
> _Felicity gets tired of waiting._

There was a slight problem with promising to wait for Oliver. Felicity had never been a very patient person.

Although for the first few weeks after she came back from the island, she _was_ waiting – but it was more a state of stunned depression than anything else.

Once they were back on US soil, the representatives of the agency that had rescued everybody from Lian Yu (yes, Felicity knew what they were called, but she remembered Oliver’s warning, especially when none of the heavily armed men ever identified themselves) had laid down the law: these last weeks had never happened.

Felicity was given all sorts of records to prove that she’d had an episode, as they were calling it – what in the past would have been called a ‘nervous breakdown’. It was what she was compelled to tell her mother. In fact, when she looked up her flight, she found nothing to prove that it had ever existed. All the people on the plane had died in unrelated accidents, all over the world. She got the hint – if she didn’t keep her mouth shut, a similar accident would be arranged for her – a real one, in her case.

There was even some money which was transferred to her account – when she protested, she was told to think of it as an insurance payout. She’d also been told that Tatiana and Vlad had been returned to their home, and given the same deal. She hoped that it was the truth, as she had no way of finding out for herself; she suspected that carrying out extensive online research about anything that had happened on the island would be a bad idea, and yet another thing which would cause her to disappear without a trace.

So she moved to Silicon Valley, and took a job with a tech corporation, and waited. At first, she scoured online news agencies for Oliver Queen every day. As the days passed, it diminished to every week. Soon, she couldn’t even spare the time for that, and the weeks she’d spent on the island were starting to seem more and more like a dream. Had it all really happened to her? Had she really killed a man? She occasionally looked up all the information about Oliver Queen pre ‘boating accident’, and found it hard to reconcile the selfish, brash, party boy with the serious man she had met on the island.

As the weeks, and then months passed, Felicity couldn’t even find time to check on Oliver anymore. On the one hand, work took up so much of her time. On the other, she’d developed a hobby of sorts, something which necessitated hours and hours of deep concentration. One false step could mean disaster. She didn’t like to think too deeply about what she was doing, the kind of communities she was visiting – she just made sure she covered her tracks well. It was just a mental exercise, she told herself. She could give it up anytime she wanted to.

So, Felicity coasted for a few months. She didn’t realise it at the time, but she wasn’t engaging with anything or anyone, except her night-time activities, and she preferred not to think too deeply about those. Things came to a head one night, when she’d been online till three am, and was so buzzed on red bull and cola that even the thought of having to get up for work in three hours couldn’t make her stop. Her body had decided otherwise, though.

_Felicity is back on the island. It’s a strange sensation, because she’s sure that she’s been working for Pica8 for a few months, but she’s equally sure that she never left the island. She’s not in the camp, though, nor in the poppy field. She’s sitting high up on one of the peaks, and below her she can only see mist._

_“He’s lost, you know.” The voice startles her. When she turns around, Tatiana is sitting next to her, but her voice is different. The accent is gone, which should seem strange, but is completely natural to Felicity._

_Felicity turns away and looks at the sea of fog._

_“He was supposed to find me,” she answers._

_Tatiana shrugs. “Maybe_ you _have to find him.”_

_“How am I supposed to do that?” Felicity says with a frown, and-_

Felicity woke up, face down on her keyboard. She rubbed her cheek, hoping that she didn’t have a weird key-shaped imprint on it, and caught a glimpse of the time – it was five thirty, and she groaned. That’s it, she was going to call in sick. There was no way she could function at all like this. What had she been thinking, pulling an all-nighter on a weekday?

Also, what was that crazy dream? It wasn’t like she hadn’t dreamt of the island since she’d left – mostly nightmares in which Conklin had- well. Best not go there. There were a couple more pleasant dreams, featuring Oliver, but she hadn’t had them lately. This last one was different. What was her unconscious trying to tell her?

She checked one of her message boards and found a new private message.

_You need to stop what you’re doing._

Her blood ran cold. Stop what she was doing? What was she doing? It was just a hobby – seeing which networks she could crack without being detected, trying to find out more about Starling City, Oliver’s home. At one point in the last few months, she’d got the weird idea that maybe Oliver was back there, but he couldn’t find her. Which was ridiculous, she knew – even though she’d helped him with the ARGUS tech on the island, he knew how to use google, and she hadn’t changed her name.

She was getting distracted again, she realised, and tried to focus on the message. So, she’d been looking into unusual events in Starling City – so what? Sure, a prominent businessman had been killed in a bizarre accident, but how could Oliver be involved in that? Ok, so the businessman had been a friend of the family. Fine, so his son had been Oliver’s best friend since childhood. Oh, _God_. She’d been totally looking into Oliver, hadn’t she? And if ARGUS had him now, that meant she’d been looking into ARGUS – what had she been thinking? Had she been thinking at all?

She started going through all her research, which wasn’t easy – she’d automatically placed everything under so many layers of protection and encryption, it was difficult to get to it, even for her.

Four hours later, she had a mountain of information at her fingertips. She felt like she’d been sleepwalking for months, and now, evidence showed that she probably had, but not in the way she’d thought. Everywhere in front of her were clues to what she’d been looking for: ARGUS. And a name she’d only heard once: Waller. How could she have done this without even consciously thinking about it? She’d been calling it a mental exercise, a thought experiment, and it was anything but. It was something that could get her killed, several times over.

She finally answered the private message.

_I need to find someone._

The reply came half an hour later.

_then you need to be more discreet. I can’t get through your security, but I’m not the best. These people are._

Felicity leaned back in her seat, conscious that she badly needed the bathroom and the shower. So, these people were the best? Well, they would see about that.

She started working on a plan the very next day, but didn’t resign from her job, or move. If she was being watched, that would be a red flag. She’d stay put until she had everything in place, for when they made a move against her. They would, she was sure of it. If ARGUS was powerful enough to make an entire plane of people disappear, one hacker would be no problem. She’d just have to make it difficult for them.

Even as she made her preparations, tiny tendrils of doubt kept her up at night. Why hadn’t Oliver contacted her? Was there nothing between them? Had it just all been a product of their situation, a kind of folie à deux, like a holiday romance, but without the holiday? Or the romance, really. No, she decided. That wasn’t important. The point was this – Oliver had kept her alive and unhurt in a terrible situation. She owed him. If he really was dead (and something deep inside her cried out in protest at this), then his family deserved to know.

Four weeks later, she was ready. All her preparations were finished, redundancies were in place, networks were set up. She had made purchases, created designs, engineered devices. She’d leased an apartment in Starling City, and had just finished packing her bags. She was ready. She hoped.

It took her a few days to get to Starling City without leaving too much of a paper trail, and a few more to unpack and set up her equipment in her new apartment. She had an interview with Merlyn Global in the morning, and after the interview, she was going to drop some phrases online, to see if she got flagged. Even though the thought terrified her, she felt she’d waited long enough. There was another fear too – what if they just killed her straightaway? She’d been operating under the assumption that they’d take her away to be interrogated, but she knew what people said about assumptions.

The next afternoon, walking towards her car in Merlyn Global’s strangely cavernous parking garage, she felt even more terrified. This had been a dumb idea, the dumbest. What could she, Felicity Smoak, do against an organization like ARGUS? It was stupid, and she wasn’t going to do it. She’d find another way, she thought, just as something buzzed near her ear and stung her on the neck.

Mosquito, she thought, slapping at her neck, and then froze as her fingers encountered something which was _not_ any kind of insect. She stared at the tiny metal dart as her surroundings started blurring, and wondered if that was going to be the last thing she ever saw. Her last thought, as she collapsed onto the filthy garage floor, was a regret over the designer suit she’d bought for the interview. Should’ve worn a knockoff.

Felicity woke up in stages, slowly becoming conscious of where she was. A bad place, she thought, remembering Tatiana’s words on the island. It was the standard abandoned warehouse, and she was zip-cuffed to a chair. There was a dazzling light trained on her, but she knew there were people on its edges. One of them _had_ to be Oliver. She couldn’t have done all this for nothing.

“You got anything to say?”

The question came out of the shadows, and made her jump. It wasn’t Oliver, though.

She raised her chin, and stared straight ahead.

“I like to see the people I’m talking to. Especially if they’re going to murder me anyway.” Her voice didn’t shake.

“You’re a criminal, a terrorist. You’ve killed hundreds of people. This is an execution.” Oliver! He was alive! She was ready to burst out into a happy greeting, when she registered what he’d just called her. What the hell was going on?

Oliver’s voice was . . . different, though. It was cold, blank. It was like he’d trained himself not to feel anything, anymore. What had they done to him?

The men moved into the light, and she finally saw Oliver. He looked _exactly_ the same. Ok, so maybe they’d given him a buzzcut, and some new fatigues, but that was it. His eyes, though. They were blank. There was no recognition when he looked at her. That wasn’t even the worst thing: his hands . . . her stomach turned. He was holding a garrotte. She clenched her fists and took a deep breath. Plan B.

“Even terrorists get a trial. Not that I’m saying I am one.” She gave Oliver her best defiant look, and was gratified by the flicker of doubt she saw in his eyes. Though even if Oliver was wavering, he had guys with him. They were giving him sneaky looks, and she started to realise what was happening, here. They weren’t just part of his squad – they were there to watch _him_ , too. So, next phase.

“Waller.” Felicity’s tone was as cold and matter of fact as she could make it.

“Huh?” This time it was Oliver’s buddy who spoke. “I don’t-“

“Get me Waller. Right now.” Work, dammit! It was her opening play. It had to work.

“Listen, lady, he’s not gonna speak to someone like you.” It was still the other guy speaking. Oliver had made the garrotte vanish, and was just standing there, his arms folded, a wrinkle between his brows.

“No, you listen,” she interrupted. “ _She_ is going to want to speak to me very, very soon.”

Felicity hadn’t finished speaking when both their heads rose, like they were wearing earpieces, and had just been buzzed. Oliver’s friend took a portable radio out of his pocket, and started to approach Felicity with it. She shook her head.

“In person. You can tell her that whatever’s happening at ARGUS, it’s going to get so much worse. She can come here, or not.” Felicity accompanied her words with a shrug, even though it was hard to move her shoulders, what with her wrists being tied to the armrests of the chair.

Oliver was standing behind the other guy, so only Felicity could see his lips twitch, almost like he couldn’t help himself. Then his eyes narrowed, like he was asking himself the question she’d asked when she first saw him: what was wrong with him?

“What do you mean, worse?” the other guy asked, seconds before a massive explosion rocked the building.

“Like that,” Felicity answered, keeping her voice even. “I guess you don’t have a van anymore. Too bad, so sad.” This time Oliver had to turn away from her. She hoped it was because he didn’t want his buddies to see him smiling.

The ARGUS guy’s eyes bulged. “How . . . ?”

Felicity shrugged again, while thinking that this was clearly the dumbest clandestine hitman ever. Hadn’t he heard of drones? She lamented briefly for the drone (she’d christened it R2) she’d had to sacrifice to show that she meant business. She hoped she wouldn’t lose D2, Chewie, Han and Leia too. Luke and Obi-wan were last resort, scorched earth policy drones. If she had to go, she was taking a chunk of real estate with her.

She gave all the ARGUS guys her best blank look, even as she wondered about Oliver. Should she say something, try to get through to him somehow? If she said his name, and he didn’t react, that would just show weakness to the others surrounding her. Right now, weakness was something she couldn’t afford. She’d noticed Oliver giving her curious looks when he thought she was distracted, but still – there’d been no recognition in his eyes. It was as if he didn’t know her, as if they’d never met.

The click of high heels on concrete allowed her some form of relief. Waller was here. As soon as the woman walked through the door, Felicity almost sagged in her chair, though she managed to control herself in the last minute. It _was_ her – Amanda Waller. She’d feared that they’d try to fob someone else off on her, someone who didn’t have the kind of authority to make the deal Felicity wanted. This was the real thing, though.

Waller had managed to scrub her image off every conceivable corner of the internet, but she’d missed one – her high school yearbook. Maybe she’d missed it because it hadn’t been online when she’d gone to high school, but a conscientious classmate had uploaded it recently, using a photo someone had taken of Waller during cheerleading practice. Though the hardened and cold woman who walked into the warehouse only vaguely resembled the cheerful teenager she’d been then.

She stopped in front of Felicity, arms folded, and observed her for a few seconds.

“Ms. Smoak.”

“Ms. Waller.” Felicity knew that she was being annoying – she knew the woman preferred to be called by her surname, only.

“Give us the room, please.” Waller spoke to the men around her without looking at them, and they filed out obediently. “Do you know why you’re here, Ms Smoak?”

“I let you catch me, that’s why.” Felicity spoke in the same flat tone Waller was using.

Waller looked intrigued.

“Now, why would you do that? Do you feel you haven’t been compensated adequately for your ordeal?” A small smile seemed to be permanently fixed on Waller’s face.

Felicity took a couple of deep breaths, to remove the impulse to say the first thing that came to her head – that of course she didn’t want _money_.

“I want Oliver.” Her voice remained steady, she was glad to hear.

“Excuse me?” Waller answered, a hint of contempt in her tone.

“You’ve kept him prisoner long enough. He hasn’t committed any crime. He should go back to his family.”

Waller studied Felicity like a bug under a microscope – Felicity lifted her head and met her gaze head on.

“He’s a murderer. An assassin.” Waller studied her nails as she threw the words at Felicity, who couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Because of _you_. For _you_. And because you told him they were criminals, terrorists.” Just like me, Felicity wanted to add. How many people did you make him murder, by telling him he was executing criminals?

“They were.”

Felicity shrugged. “Fine, ok. But now he’s done.”

Waller tapped her chin.

“What if I said no, and said I’d deal with the disruption you’ve caused?”

“Then I’d say you’re an idiot. Disrupting your network and blowing up the van were just opening shots. Everything else is set on a timed release. I’m not saying my code is impenetrable. But by the time someone gets through it, a lot of damage will have been done. Irreparable damage.” Felicity enunciated the last two words, almost like she could taste them, hoping she was having an effect, hoping her terror wasn’t bleeding through. As bluffs went, this was the biggest one she’d ever made. Not that it wouldn’t happen; but she wasn’t sure Waller would consider the damage to be irreparable.

Waller walked closer, and leaned over Felicity, supporting herself on the back of the chair, whispering in her ear.

“I have men in my employ that are specialised in torture. Oliver is one of them. And _now_ , the way he is now, he’ll actually enjoy anything I’d tell him to do to you.”

Felicity gave a theatrically loud sigh.

“Time is passing, _Ms_ Waller. Any minute now, people are gonna call from your head office with new problems. At one point, and I’m not sure exactly when, your IT people are gonna toss a coin to decide who gets to tell you that all your secrets, all your filthy murders and torture sessions, all your cover-ups, _everything_ is online, out in the open, for everyone to read. Newspapers, news blogs, the world’s press – it’ll all be there. Now, will you still care by then that you had me tortured to death?” It was like the voice belonged to someone else, Felicity thought – someone braver, cooler. When had she become such a good actress?

“He is not the same man. He doesn’t even know who he is anymore.”

“I don’t care.” Felicity spat out the words with a conviction she only half felt. Waller was starting to scare her now, making Oliver sound like Jack the Ripper or something.

Felicity always wondered, afterwards, what exactly she’d said to finally convince Waller. The woman stared at her for a few seconds, and Felicity didn’t even dare blink. Then Waller sighed, and walked away, producing a radio, and speaking rapidly into it. Almost instantly, Felicity heard the sound of a scuffle. When she looked towards the door, two of the ARGUS thugs had Oliver pinned between them, his hands cuffed behind his back.

“Well, Mr Smith, this is your lucky day.” Waller couldn’t restrain a smirk, and Felicity wondered what she was so happy about. Also, Mr Smith? Was that for Felicity’s benefit, or did Oliver really have amnesia? “This nice lady wants to adopt you.”

Waller’s words had an instant effect on Oliver, like he’d been zapped. He started yelling something she couldn’t make out, but not for long. At a nod from Waller, his mouth was duct-taped shut.

“Still want him, Ms. Smoak? He knows that if he’s alone with you, he’s going to try and tear you apart. I’m afraid he’s just a failed experiment.”

One of the other ARGUS men cut her zip-ties, and she rubbed her wrists, thinking frantically. Was this a counter-bluff? Was she supposed to give up? When she looked up, Waller had a gun in her hand.

“Now these,” she said, holding a tiny dart, which she proceeded to load in the gun, “are tranquilliser darts. They’ll keep him down for a few hours, until you decide he’s more trouble than he’s worth.”

Oliver was still fighting, his face purple behind the tape. Felicity took the tranq gun in a daze and walked up to him.

“Stop it! You’re coming with me whether you want to or not!” What was she _saying_?

Oliver subsided, and let the other guys drag him off to her car, which apparently they’d brought here, probably to set up a mysterious and fatal car crash for her. Felicity winced as they pushed Oliver in – he had to sit hunched over. Maybe she should have leased a bigger car. One of the goons wordlessly handed over her purse, and she rummaged inside it for a certain piece of equipment that she’d stashed there for emergencies. She did two full sweeps of the car to be certain that there was no bug or explosive device.

“Remember our deal, Ms Smoak. I hope, for your sake, that you’ll still honour it, even if what you get out of it isn’t to your . . . satisfaction.” The way Waller lingered over the word, practically rolling it over her tongue, made Felicity see red, finally.

“I always keep my word, Ms Waller,” she said, as she threw her purse in the back seat. She glared at Waller, wanting to pour out all the past months’ frustration over her, but realised she’d just be playing into her hands. Instead, Felicity got in and started driving, anxious to get out of there before Waller changed her mind.

Next to her, Oliver was motionless, upright. His fists were clenched in the small of his back, and he was hunched forward slightly. When she was a few blocks away, she chose a random alley and pulled in. She sensed he was looking at her, puzzled, but she had to do this now. She’d explain later.

Felicity got out her tablet, and first checked for any spyware. She’d created a program that would cause it to wipe itself in that case. It seemed clean, but she was still going to destroy it as soon as she’d carried out the first phase of undoing everything she’d done to ARGUS. Once she was finished, she looked at Oliver. She pulled off the duct tape and winced. That must have hurt.

“Why are you doing this?” Oliver sounded like he was barely suppressing rage. There was another emotion there too.

“Oliver . . . don’t you remember me?” She tried not to sound too plaintive, though it wasn’t easy. He looked at her, quickly, like he didn’t dare linger on her.

“I don’t know anything about my past. All I know is that you’re a terrorist – you brought down that Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong a few months ago.”

Felicity had started driving again, but when his words registered, she braked hard, and he almost hit the windshield.

“Are you shitting me? I was on that plane! I was the only fucking survivor! And then I washed up on this shitty little island in the North China Sea, and- Oliver, don’t you remember any of this?” Felicity tried to calm down. Obviously they’d tell him she deserved whatever she got – even brainwashed Oliver needed some justification for killing. She hoped. When she looked at him, he was still staring ahead, biting his lip.

Felicity took a few deep breaths to calm down, and drove on. When she’d leased her apartment, she’d made sure it had parking which was fairly private, though she hadn’t anticipated bringing handcuffed people home. Oliver reluctantly got out of her car, and trudged to her front door. She made him sit in the strongest chair she had, and used some tarp straps she still had from her move to tie him to it. When she pulled the strap back around his waist, he winced.

“What’s wrong? Is it too tight?” She rolled her eyes at herself. He didn’t even dignify it with a reply. But he squirmed a little, and she gave in to her curiosity, lifting his shirt. The tattoo he’d told her Constantine had given him, the strange Chinese characters he couldn’t even read – wow. It was in bad shape; inflamed, scabbed over, and bleeding, in part. “Oh, _Oliver_. What did you do?”

He shrugged. “Nothing – it’s always been like that.” He looked at her curiously. “If you know me like you say, where did I get it?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she answered, shaking her head as she backed away from him. She’d noticed his fists were clenched hard in the small of his back, and his whole body seemed to be straining against the ropes. Her plan was looking less successful by the second.

“This is pointless!” Oliver looked like he was going to explode. “Didn’t you hear Waller? They gave me something, a drug. It changed me. I can’t – when I see women – I just want to-“ He stopped, biting his lip.

“Just want to what?” Felicity whispered, horrified, the tranquilliser gun dangling from her hand.

Oliver looked down, seeming almost ashamed. “To kill them. Tear them to pieces with my hands. And teeth.”

Felicity shook her head in disbelief. How could this be happening? How could Oliver be saying this?

“I honestly don’t know how that is even possible. Sounds like science fiction to me. We’ll find a way to cure you, I promise.”

“There is no ‘we’!” Oliver sounded like he was close to losing it. “Even if you’re not a terrorist, I’m a killer! I’ve killed people – it’s what I do. It’s _all_ I do. You have to kill me before I hurt you! You have to do it now!”

He strained against the ropes like a maniac, and started to get up, practically lifting the chair as he rose. Felicity had to move fast. Of course, she wasn’t going to kill him. Maybe there was another way, though.

The tranq gun made a little popping noise as she shot it at Oliver, and at first he looked relieved, but then, when he realised she’d just drugged him, groaned. “Oh, _come on_.”

It took him a few seconds, but he eventually keeled over, slumping down on the chair. After a few false starts, Felicity managed to check his pulse with shaking fingers, afraid that Waller had double-crossed her, and had made her kill Oliver after all. But he was still alive – pulse a little fast, it was true, but alive.

Felicity wanted to scream and cry, rage against the unfairness of it all. Now she had Oliver back, and he kept insisting that he wasn’t Oliver. How was she supposed to cure him? Could it even be done? She allowed herself the luxury of a few angry tears, then sat in front of her laptop, determined again.

So, they’d drugged him with something. Then they could undrug him, or cure him, or whatever they wanted to call it. It had to be online somewhere, and if it was, then she would find it.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the lovely kudos and comments!

_His first thought, when he wakes up, in broad daylight, walking through a strange field full of brightly coloured flowers, is that he must have died at some point. Felicity Smoak, aka crazy hacker chick, shot him, and this is . . . what? Heaven? Hasn’t he killed too many people to be in heaven?_

_Could this be a dream, he wonders? Though, if he’s dreaming, how come he knows it’s a dream? And anyway, he hasn’t dreamt for months . . . not since he started working for Waller. He’s trying to work this problem out when the ground collapses under his feet, and he lands in a tunnel, lit by torches. Fine, so he_ is _dreaming._

_”What time d’you call this, then? I’ve been waiting for months, Oliver!” The speaker sounds British, and impatient._

_He walks towards the man waiting at the end of the passage, and looks him up and down – he has scruffy blond hair, and is smoking a cigarette._

_“Who’re you? And why are you calling me Oliver?”_

_The blond guy looks at him in surprise. He moves closer and stares into John’s eyes._

_“Because that’s your name.” The gentle tone takes Smith off guard._

_“That crazy girl called me Oliver, too,” Smith murmurs, half under his breath._

_“So, I think introductions are called for,” blond guy says, holding out his hand, “I’m John Constantine; exorcist, demonologist, and master of the dark arts.”_

_Smith ignores the hand, folding his arms in front of him._

_“I don’t even know what that means. Why am I dreaming about you, anyway? And what is this place?”_

_Constantine rubbed his face, looking worried._

_“This isn’t a dream, Oliver. It’s a spirit walk. And this place – you know it better than anyone. Or you knew it, at least.” He stares at John, then comes to a decision. “Take off your shirt.”_

_“What?”_

_“Don’t you remember the tattoo? On your abdomen?”  
_

_John lifts his shirt – the Chinese tattoo looks as bad in the dream, oh sorry, spirit walk, as it does in real life. Constantine winces._

_"No wonder it’s been calling to me for months.” Constantine notices John’s sceptical look, and shrugs. “This is all going to sound mental to you, mate, if you don’t remember anything. It’s the drug they gave you, innit?”_

_John nods, reluctantly. “They said I volunteered.”_

_“And you believe them?” Constantine’s eyebrows are raised._

_John shrugs, trying to convey that he hasn’t been given much choice. Constantine moves closer suddenly, putting a hand on John’s forehead. The guy seems too scrawny to have much strength, but John finds himself pushed to his knees, as a lancing pain goes through his head. Constantine murmurs reassuring phrases, but John is on fire. Finally, Constantine removes the hand and sighs._

_“They’ve made a right pig’s ear of your head, Oliver. Good news is, the spell should work on fixing it.”_

_John looks up, hardly believing what he’s hearing._

_“Are you serious? You can fix me?”_

_Constantine looks indulgent. “I gave you the unlocking spell myself, but it’s probably the first thing they took from you, right?”_

_It’s all gibberish to John – all he hears is that he can be fixed._

_Constantine produces a staff from his coat, and proceeds to stab him in the side with it. John grits his teeth, and manages not to scream, even as Constantine starts reciting phrases which set his tattoo on fire. The process is endless, until it’s suddenly over, and Constantine steps back from him._

_John is just about ask him how he would know if it was working, when his whole body tries to turn itself inside out. He falls to his hands and knees, and starts vomiting – a black-tar like substance is coming out of his mouth, nose and eyes, and seemingly every pore too. He lies on his side, racked with cramps and chills, until it finally stops. He opens his eyes carefully._

_Constantine is looking at him. He starts to say that it didn’t work, he doesn’t feel any different, same Oliver Queen, nothing’s changed, when it hits him. That’s his name!_

_“I’m Oliver Queen,” he blurts out, and Constantine’s happy grin lights up the gloomy room they’re in._

_“It’ll all come back to you – but you need to be patient.”_

_Oliver gets up, ready to ask a million questions, but each time, is interrupted by a new memory coming back, some better, some worse. The next time he wants to ask something, he’s interrupted once again, as it starts raining inside the passage, a few drops turning into a downpour._

_“What the hell?” Oliver’s soaked within seconds._

_Constantine’s grin expands._

_“Dream imagery, mate. You need to ‘ave a slash.”_

_Oliver just looks at him blankly._

_“You need to piss.”_

_“Thought you said this wasn’t a dream.”_

_Constantine sighs, and snaps his fingers. The last thing Oliver hears him say is that they’ll discuss the intricate details of spirit walks when he isn’t in danger of pissing his pants in his sleep._

Oliver woke up with a gasp. To his horror, he felt drenched, then sighed in relief when he realised that it was just sweat. The clothes ARGUS had put him in were soaked through, and the clammy feeling was nauseating. The pressure on his bladder was almost unbearable, but it meant he hadn’t let go yet. He looked around him for Felicity, and a little snore gave him a clue. She was fast asleep at her desk, her face smushed into the keyboard, and he felt a familiar mix of love and exasperation – how could she have risked her life like that? For him? He could have killed her, and wouldn’t have known or cared.

Oliver remembered the various lock-picks that were sewn into the sleeves of his BDUs, and managed to get one out, and start working on his handcuffs. After that, getting out of the ropes tying him to the chair was child’s play, and he went quickly towards what he hoped was the bedroom, with attached bathroom. He was right first try, and pissed for what felt like hours. The BDUs were soaked in sweat and he tore them off his body – his own sweat smelled strange to him, sharp, like some sort of chemical. He threw them in a reeking pile on the bathroom floor, but it wasn’t enough – he felt coated in the smell, it was suffocating him. He climbed into Felicity’s small shower, and when the water poured over him, opened his mouth to drink it. The smell was coating the inside of his mouth, and he rinsed and spat, rinsed and spat, trying to get it out of him. He felt a slight twinge of guilt at using all of Felicity’s hot water, though.

“Come out of there with your hands up! I have a gun!” Felicity’s voice sounded shaky and terrified.

Oliver looked at the wet pile of clothes on the floor – no way was he getting in those again. Problem was, the towel was in no way long enough to put around his waist.

“I don’t have any clothes on,” Oliver called. As soon as the words left his mouth, he cringed.

“Why?” Now she sounded even more scared. Good one, Oliver. “I mean, come out now! I don’t care how naked you are!”

He emerged from the tiny bathroom, conscious of the billowing clouds of steam emerging with him, and the small towel he was trying to hold in front of his groin. He put the other arm up, hoping it would be enough.

Felicity looked . . . she looked _glorious_. Her hair had half-escaped from her ponytail and was a fuzzy blond halo around her head. Her eye make-up was smudged and she’d evidently been chewing on a red pen before she fell asleep, because there was red ink in the corner of her mouth. Now that he wasn’t seeing her through the fuzzy lens of ‘person I have to kill’, she was even more stunning. She’d done all this – for him. Then, in return, he’d threatened her life.

“I said – put your hands up!” She was on the edge, and he’d better obey her, unless he wanted a bullet to the head. For the first time in months, he really didn’t. So he interlocked his fingers behind his head, and tried not to feel too smug when her eyes immediately dropped to his groin, then his chest. She bit her lip, and his skin heated up. Not so smug now, huh? His inner voice could be very judgemental at times.

“Uhh . . . Felicity-“ He tried to emulate the time he’d stopped her from jumping off a cliff, only this time it didn’t work.

“Shut up! God, you’re distracting.” She thought, and then nodded her head. “Open the second drawer on your left . . . yeah, that one.”

He waited for her nod before he brought his arms down, then froze, stunned, once he opened the drawer. There was a complete set of men’s clothes: cargo pants, t-shirt, hoodie, even underwear and socks. He looked at her, and he was sure that the love he felt was shining out of his eyes, though not shining far enough, he realised.

“I got those things for _Oliver_ ,” she said, eyes flashing. “Not Waller’s thug, John Smith!” She put her hands to her head, then remembered she was still holding a gun, and pointed it at him again. “Just get dressed – I need to think. And I can’t do that when you’re all . . .” She waved the gun at him, and he fought the impulse to duck. He nodded, and got dressed as quickly as he could, probably setting some kind of speed record. When he turned back to her, she was holding the gun loosely in one hand, and pinching the bridge of her nose with the other.

“How the hell did you get out of those handcuffs? And why was taking a shower your first priority?” She looked like she was close to losing it.

“I remembered everything, Felicity! I know who I am now . . .” But she was shaking her head.

“I did some research while you took your nap – I can’t even find references to a drug that does . . . what you say it did to you. Let alone a _cure_. How do I know you’re not faking it?”

“Do you remember John Constantine and his tattoo?” She nodded, even as he realised that mentioning Constantine wasn’t going to help. How was talking about meeting the guy in a dream going to help? He changed tack.

“If you have a mobile phone, we can call him right now – he can explain everything to you.”

She glared at him, not really trusting him yet, he could tell. She pulled her mobile out of her pocket, and he dictated the number to her – he’d memorised it back on Lian Yu. When a cheerful voice answered, he closed his eyes in relief.

“U.S. number calling me – can only be Oliver Queen!” Constantine sounded just like he had in Oliver’s dream – oh sorry, _spirit walk_.

Felicity chewed on her lower lip, looking torn. “Actually, this is Felicity Smoak. And I don’t know who he is – if he’s really Oliver again.”

“Do me a favour, love – ‘ave a look at that tattoo I gave him back on Lian Yu.”

Felicity gestured with the gun, and Oliver lifted his shirt. This time he gaped at his abs along with her – the tattoo was gone. There was just a scab or two to show that it had ever been there, but the markings and the general inflammation and bleeding: those were all gone.

“That’s impossible,” Felicity breathed. Unfortunately, she was breathing right on his skin, which immediately pebbled up in response, just like it had on the island. There was the other effect too – good thing he was wearing pants, now. She realized how close she was and backed away, hurriedly. Constantine was still talking, though.

“Now, one of these days we’ll have a long talk about magic and the dark arts – right now, I think you two have some talking to do!”

Felicity nodded and hung up, then she put the gun on the dresser, carefully.

“Oliver, I’m really sorry-“

“Felicity, I don’t know what to say-“

They spoke at the same time, then stopped. Ok, so he hadn’t expected them to run into each other’s arms through a field of flowers, but this the most awkward reunion ever. Oliver rubbed his head, trying to think of a way to break the tension. Felicity nibbled on her nail a little, and started again.

“D’you feel like going out for breakfast?”

Oliver wondered if he’d heard right.

“You look different enough now that people won’t recognize you right away. I think we both need some coffee right now.”

Oliver couldn’t help smiling – that was the Felicity he remembered from the island. Her eyes brightened and she tried a tentative smile back, which grew when he nodded in agreement.

Sure, they’d go out for a coffee – it had been so long since he’d seen his home through the eyes of a normal person, not an assassin going after a target. She stretched, and he found himself transfixed by the lines of her body, then quickly averted his eyes. They needed to talk, before anything else. Still, he couldn’t help the joy growing inside him. He was Oliver again. She’d found him. There was a chance for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the big chunk of italics at the beginning - I regretted I'd started using italics for dream sequences when I realised the John Constantine bit ran a bit long.
> 
> This story is coming to an end - maybe two chapters left. I'm half sad, and half eager, so I can focus on The Other Shore.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for everyone's wonderful kudos and comments!

When Felicity came away from the counter with the coffees and bagels and saw the way Oliver was sitting, she started to think that maybe this hadn’t been such a great idea, after all.

He didn’t twitch every time the door opened, and he didn’t jump every time someone laughed really loud (and there was a definite shrieker here this morning – Felicity wondered where they got the energy from), but his fist was clenched on the table, and his other hand was in the pocket of the hoodie she’d bought him. Did he have the gun in there? She desperately hoped not.

She made sure to walk up to their table slowly, giving him time to register her presence – when he did, he gave her a smile which was more of a rictus.

“That’s the fakest smile I’ve ever seen in my life,” she murmured, “and I’ve watched _a lot_ of reality tv.” She was glad to see him relax, stretching out his fingers. He didn’t take his other hand out of his pocket, though.

“Sorry.” He rubbed his fingers together and tapped them on the table, then fiddled with his napkin. “I don’t know why this is bothering me so much.”

Felicity leaned on the table and took a sip of her coffee, regretting it when she burned her tongue. She blew on it a couple of times, grumbling.

“Stop laughing at me,” she muttered, glancing up to see his lips twitching. “The way you describe _that place_ ,” she continued, unwilling even to use the name in public, “sounds an awful lot like prison. So maybe what you’re feeling now is that kind of anxiety ex-cons get once they leave the big house.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow as he mouthed ‘the big house’ back at her. She narrowed her eyes, then pointed at him.

“Look, you’re even guarding your food!” She immediately looked around her, worried that she’d been too loud, but the café was super loud on its own.

She was right, though: he’d curled his arm around his bagel and coffee, and now he was looking down at them like they’d betrayed him in some way. This time the smile he aimed her way was genuine, and she returned it, only to jump when the shrieking laugher struck again. Oliver shook his head, and continued devouring his bagel.

“Didn’t they feed you – over there?” Felicity was genuinely curious now.

Oliver nodded, and swallowed.

“Yeah – but you’re right. It was like prison – the food, too. It wasn’t chosen for taste – every calorie was counted, and everything was super healthy. Hey, do you have ice cream at your place? Because I can’t remember the last time I had some.”

Felicity nodded.

“Sure.” She sipped at her coffee some more, unsure of what to add to the conversation. She wanted to ask how he’d ended up as John Smith, amnesiac assassin, she wanted to know if he’d really have killed her – though a voice in her head crowed that she really, _really_ didn’t want to know the answer to that particular question.

Oliver had finished eating, and was starting to look nervy again.

“Why don’t we go there, Oliver?” He looked up, trying hard to disguise the look of relief on his face.

“And then,” she whispered, standing on tiptoes to speak in his ear, “you can tell me what you have in your pocket.” She replayed the last few words and groaned. “No, that wasn’t what it sounded like. I mean really in your pocket, not a euphemism for an erection- let me start again.”

By this time, Oliver’s shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and showed it to her. It was empty. His eyes twinkled.

“Do you want to check for yourself?” He sounded better than he had all morning.

Felicity tossed her head. “Slow your roll, Oliver. I don’t do PDA.”

Still, she could tell he was still tense when they arrived. Before she went in, he insisted on checking all the rooms to make sure they were empty.

"D'you really think she'll double cross us?" Felicity was talking to Oliver’s dangling legs. He’d climbed up one of her walls, had unscrewed a heating vent, and was feeling around inside – for bugs, he’d explained.

Oliver dropped back down and gave her a blank look.

"Come on, Oliver. You know I mean Waller." She gave him her best cocked head plus crossed arms combo, which he apparently found hard to resist.

He smiled ruefully, and shook his head. "I don't know. I mean, before . . . I would have said no - but then she drugged me and kept me for months. She even told me I volunteered to be a test subject. And then I killed for ARGUS . . . I killed my best friend’s dad, Felicity."

Felicity dropped her purse on the couch, unwilling to meet his eyes.

“Waller said those were really criminals – not like when she set you on me.”

Oliver shook his head, then seemed to remember something. “Why did she do that, anyway? I can’t believe . . . I could have killed you!”

Felicity blushed. “I got bored. I started looking into ARGUS.”

Oliver put his hands over his eyes, and she bit her lip. “Are you serious? Felicity . . .”

“If I hadn’t, you’d still be there, killing people. Wouldn’t you?”

Oliver nodded, reluctantly. “I can’t believe anything she told me anymore. I mean, sure, Slade Wilson – he was a killer. And he planned to do horrible things. But Tommy’s dad – why did she do that to him?”

Felicity grabbed her tablet and started bringing up her research. “Actually, what I found out was the opposite – I couldn’t find anything about Slade Wilson. But once I really got into what Malcolm Merlyn was up to – Oliver, he wasn’t a good man. He had stuff planned that would wipe out half of Starling City – I mean, literally. Off. The. Map.”

“So the earthquake machine was real?” Oliver sounded like he found it hard to believe what he was saying.

“Oh, _yeah.”_ She could still picture the blueprints she’d found of something called the Markov device, and shivered at the kind of destruction it could have caused.

“Then why did you apply to work at Merlyn Global? Why not . . . uh . . . Queen Consolidated?” Oliver looked worried, like she’d found out something worse about his mom’s company.

She walked up to him and squeezed his arm. “I thought it would be too obvious. I didn’t realise she was already on to me. Besides, your friend is CEO of Merlyn Global, now. It’s all clean – I checked.”

Oliver nodded, rubbing his fingers together. She got an idea.

“Why don’t you check on your family online – see what they’ve been doing all this time?”

Felicity got him settled in front of her laptop while she worked on her tablet, checking all her networks, her bank accounts – even looking up her own name. She just needed to look into anything and everything Waller might use to mess with her. She couldn’t find anything, though. Either Waller was keeping to her deal, or she thought the radio silence on their part meant that either she was dead, or Oliver, or they both were. Nothing like a little murder-suicide to keep things neat, huh, Amanda? Wow, that was bitter, she told herself. Cheer up, Felicity – he’s here, now.

Before she knew it, an hour had passed. Oliver was still wrapped up in whatever internet rabbit hole he’d fallen down – she could see the screen from where she sat, and she raised her eyebrows. He was looking into archery supplies and vacant property in the Glades. She put it out of her mind. He’d tell her when he was ready. She hoped.

“Hey.” Oliver’s voice sounded tentative.

Felicity looked up and smiled. She knew exactly what he wanted. “I hope you like pizza, cos that’s what I ordered!”

“I love pizza!” He sounded happy. “I really, really missed it.”

When the pizza arrived, he stayed out of sight. At least he didn’t insist on hiding behind the door, she thought.

The look on Oliver’s face when he inhaled his half made her feel guilty she hadn’t ordered more.

“Here, d’you want mine?” She offered him her half, having lost her appetite when she’d remembered the months he’d been trapped in that horrible place.

He stopped eating, embarrassed.

“It’s not that – just that at ARGUS you never knew when Waller was going to call a meeting. Or send us on a mission. So you just had to-“

“Wolf everything down,” Felicity answered, unable to hide the anger in her voice. “That woman. I’d really like to-“

“You said it sounds like a prison – it kind of was. All the others in my team, in other teams, they were all criminals making themselves useful, rather than rotting in jail.” Oliver had a faraway look on his face, like he was somewhere else.

“You weren’t a criminal, Oliver. It wasn’t right, what she did to you.”

He dropped his eyes to his food, playing with his fork a little.

“I did some work for her . . . in Hong Kong. It wasn’t exactly- it was pretty bad.”

She grabbed his hand, determined to get him off this train of thought.

“Oliver – you never had a choice, with Waller. You told me she forced you into it. Don’t you remember?”

Oliver nodded, then smiled. “I remember. I remember a lot.”

Her lips twitched, and she was sure she was blushing. “Oh?”

He nodded again. “Uh-huh.” He pushed the food aside and got up, moving around the table, pulling her out of her chair.

“I wasn’t sure – thought maybe you weren’t interested anymore . . . you didn’t say anything . . . “ She babbled, feeling like she couldn’t catch her breath.

He was so close now, she could see the emotion in his eyes, the intensity of his stare. He took her glasses off and she blinked, feeling disoriented, but then he cupped her face in one hand and she shuddered. He stopped moving, and she opened her eyes, puzzled.

“Is this . . . is this still what you want?” Oliver was unsure, and she needed to wipe that lost look off his face. She wound her arms around his neck, rubbing up against him, and kissed him, nibbling at his lower lip.

“More than anything, Oliver-“ She had a second to take a breath before he silenced her in a deep kiss, his hands roaming all over her. They kissed for what seemed like hours, coming up for breath and then starting again. He stroked her thighs, her hips, never venturing any further, and she shivered, she wanted him so badly.

“I missed you so much, Oliver,” she whispered in between one kiss and another. “I was so scared you were-“ He interrupted again, kissing her frantically, like he was terrified of letting her go, like she would disappear if he did.

“I lost you,” he was muttering under his breath, “I lost you – I’m never losing you again.”

They were lying on the couch, entwined, trying to catch their breath, when Felicity came to a decision. She guessed that he was holding back so as not to scare her off, but she wasn’t scared. She knew what she wanted.

“So, you wanna see my bedroom? Wait, you already saw it when you destroyed my shower,” she giggled, playing with the zipper on his hoodie.

“I didn’t destroy your shower!” He caught her hand and kissed it, then sighed. His face was a slight tinge of pink, especially around the cheekbones.

“Is something wrong?” She couldn’t keep the tremor out of her voice when she asked, and he was quick to reassure her, kissing her again, dropping kisses all over her face until she squealed.

“Felicity . . . I haven’t – uh – been with anyone – in a really long time.” He bit his lip, obviously embarrassed, but then forged on. “I’m gonna last like . . . five seconds. Maybe less.”

She chewed on her lower lip, the mantra ‘don’t laugh, don’t laugh’ running through her head on a loop. He looked at her sideways.

“You can laugh if you want to, I don’t mind.”

She raised her chin imperiously. “I had no intention of laughing.” She got up and pulled him off the sofa, leading him towards her bedroom. “I already told you, some time ago, that I could help you with that, take the edge off. Offer’s still open.”

He grabbed her from behind and lifted her up as she squeaked, tickling her and nuzzling her neck.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the offer,” he said, “but it’s not very romantic.”

He put her down in her bedroom and she smiled up at him.

“Pfft. I don’t believe in romance.” She reached up for him and he caught her hand, kissing it. “Now, love . . . that’s something else.”

His eyes widened and he cradled her face in his hands, and this time the kiss was gentle and soft. He was blinking back tears when he pulled back from her, his eyes shiny. Come on, Felicity, she thought. Stop bringing the room down. She unzipped his hoodie as he watched, and raised an eyebrow.

“Lose the clothes, Oliver.”

He smirked. “You first.”

“Oh, a challenge, huh?” She pulled her t-shirt over her head and pulled the scrunchie out of her ponytail at the same time, giggling at the way his eyes fixed on her boobs and stayed there.

He grinned, and took off the hoodie and t-shirt, and she had to choke back a moan. His chest was . . . well, it was amazing. It struck her again how weird it was that the tattoo was gone, and she couldn’t help stroking his abs a little, enjoying his breath hitching as she did.

She took off her pants and underwear at the same time, and unclasped her bra while he was taking his pants off, and they were naked in front of each other for the first time. Well, she’d just seen him come out of the bathroom. Plus, he could have seen her back on the island, and she’d caught a good glimpse of him, but this was different. This was just for them.

Oliver was beautiful, sculpted, and hard as a rock, his cock curving up towards his belly. He was staring at her, mouth open.

“You’re so beautiful, Felicity. So very beautiful.”

Somehow they fell on the bed and started kissing again, and this time she could feel his burning skin all over her, the smell and heat of him surrounding her. She pulled back a little from a kiss, and pushed him on his back, kissing his chest. She licked the palm of her hand, looking at him wickedly all the while, and he had to close his eyes and groan.

She settled at his side and started stroking him with touches which were light at first, then she got a grip on him and started jacking him firmly. True to his word, he didn’t last very long, crying out as he came. She reached for some wipes to clean him up, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her up to him, plunging his tongue in her mouth, taking her breath away.

He started kissing her breasts, licking and nibbling at her nipples, and then he went ever lower, and she realised where he was going. She stroked his head distractedly, wondering if this wasn’t too much for their first time. She realised he’d stopped kissing her stomach, and was looking at her, an eyebrow raised.

“Too much?”

“No . . . no. I guess.” She bit her lip. “It’s been a while for me too. Maybe go slow a little?”

Oliver's eyes turned wicked, and he dropped a kiss on her inner thigh, then rubbed his stubble against the place he’d kissed. She squeaked, and he kissed it again, sucking at the flesh.

“That’s gonna leave a mark,” she babbled distractedly, and gasped as he bit her other thigh, then kissed it better.

“Good,” he answered, satisfaction in his tone. She flushed, pleased. She liked this possessive Oliver, she realised. He kissed his way down and started licking her clit, alternating rough and gentle, until she felt like she was going insane. He brought her to the edge more than once, then stopped. When she raised her head and glared at him, he smirked, and wiped his mouth.

“Slow enough for you?”

Felicity dropped her head back into the pillow, and he went back to licking and sucking her. She lost track of time as he tortured her with his tongue, her hand clamped on the back of his head. Finally, _finally_ he let her come, her hand covering her eyes as she shuddered and quaked, her knees trying to close on his head. She pulled at him and he crawled back up, looking smug.

“You,” she gasped, poking at his chest. She realised he’d slid two fingers inside her and was playing with her clit, and she moaned, wanting more. She felt blindly inside her bedside table, and pulled out the drawer, sending it crashing to the ground.

“Condoms, Oliver, come on.” He laughed quietly and scooped one up, turning away from her a bit to put one on.

When he turned back to her, he looked a little unsure, and she reached up, stroking his cheek. He kissed her roughly, putting one hand under her knee and lifting it, as she guided his cock inside her, stretching her. He hung his head a little, eyes closed to get used to the feeling, it seemed. She relaxed, letting her legs fall apart, and he slid in even further, getting a whimper out of her and a gasp from him. He started moving, sparking all the right feelings inside her, changing the angle to hit her clit with every thrust. She whimpered and moaned, clinging to his neck as he pounded her into the mattress, her bed creaking madly, the headboard banging against the wall. She found herself coming again, and yelled his name, begging him not to stop, and he didn’t, his face open with wonder as he watched her come apart. His rhythm slowed down, but stayed relentless as he thrust, chasing his own pleasure, squeezing his eyes shut as he came inside her.

Oliver hung over her, snorting, gasping for breath. When she smiled up at him, he smiled back, kissing her, and then rolled off her, getting rid of the condom. She pulled a blanket over them and snuggled into his side, enjoying the aftershock of the amazing orgasms she’d just had.

She’d forgotten how chatty she became after sex, especially _good_ sex, which didn’t tire her out, but left her hyper and wanting to start five new projects at once. She was just launching into a rambling story of how she’d come across the job at Merlyn Global, and how nice Tommy Merlyn was during her interview, when a little snore interrupted her. She looked at Oliver in disbelief – fast asleep. In his sleep, the worry lines in his face smoothed out, but he still looked tired. Oh well, she thought. He needed the rest.

She was still feeling restless, though, and threw on a t-shirt, wandering to where she’d left her tablet. She started checking her emails, and had to restrain a cheer when saw that one of them was Merlyn Global HR telling her she’d been accepted as head of Applied Sciences, and asking her to give them a call as soon as she could.

This calls for the special celebration ice-cream, she thought, and was just taking it out of the freezer when someone’s arm circled her waist. She jumped, and Oliver saved the ice-cream from flying across her tiny kitchen. Felicity turned, ready to punch him for scaring her, and froze. He was completely naked.

“You’re wearing too many clothes, Felicity,” he murmured, as he pulled her t-shirt over her head.

He started kissing her breasts and she sighed happily, giggling as she realised he’d brought a condom with him. She pulled him towards the chair she’d tied him to, murmuring that they were going to exorcise bad memories, and sat him down on it, quickly rolling the condom onto his cock. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open as she sank down on him. She gave him a self-satisfied smile which turned into a gasp once he started pumping up into her. She whimpered and rode him, and he groaned, his head falling back. He played with her clit as she rode, slowly and deliciously bringing her to orgasm, and he buried his face in her hair as he thrust inside her until he came.

They fed each other ice cream on the couch. He kept ‘accidentally’ dropping it on her breasts so that he could lick it off, and she wrestled him for the spoon once he started going further and further down with it. He tickled her and she poked his side, and they kissed until they fell asleep in each other’s arms.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your amazing comments - I read every one of them, and thanks for leaving kudos, too!
> 
> This is more of an interlude - a sexy interlude.

Felicity let the hot water wash over her, feeling the grime of the last few days peeling off her in layers.

She immediately corrected herself. Not _grime_ , not really. The floor of the parking garage had definitely ruined her suit, though. Then there’d been the various _exertions_ with Oliver. She blushed as she conditioned her hair, remembering what he felt like in her hand, inside her.

She’d left him in a restless doze, pretty sure he was dreaming – not about anything good. But he’d warned her never to wake him up out of a nightmare, and she’d agreed instantly. Not that she was afraid of him, though she still occasionally had flashes of him advancing on her, a thin wire stretched between his clenched fists. She closed her eyes and shook the memory off, determined to remember other, better examples of his strength and agility. The way he’d picked her up on the island, climbing up the wall of her apartment, getting up in spite of being tied to a chair, the look on his face murderous- no! She had to get over this.

In the shower she had the irrational thought that when she went out, he’d be gone, so she rinsed off and dried herself quickly, using the towel as a sort of sarong. But when she emerged in her bedroom, he _was_ gone, and she bit her lip, trying to suppress the panic. When she cracked the door open, and peeped out, he was sitting in front of her computer, frowning. He’d gotten dressed, she thought, strangely disappointed, then blushed. Again. They’d just spent hours . . . fucking, and she was horny again! What the hell was wrong with her? She was going to tiptoe back into her bedroom, when a thought struck her.

This was _her_ apartment! With that in mind, she swung the door open and strode confidently up to him, realising too late that she was only wearing a towel. Not that he hadn’t seen it all, though. When she looked up, he was smiling at her. She caught a glimpse of what he was reading – something about Thea Queen being busted for drug use – and winced. He followed her eyes and nodded sadly.

“It’s kind of weird to think of my baby sister doing drugs.” He rubbed his fingers together in a nervous tic she was starting to recognize.

“Things change. Kids grow up,” she offered, not really sure what to say.

He quirked a half-smile and grabbed her hand, pulling her on his lap, stroking her shoulder, and nuzzling her neck. He seemed to be heading for her towel, before he stopped, his eyes far away. She looked up at him, puzzled.

“I never asked you about the island, Felicity. How you got away.” Oliver chewed on his lower lip. “From . . . from Conklin.”

Ah. She shivered involuntarily, and snuggled up to him in reflex. It was easier to tell him about it when not looking at him, so she kept her eyes down as she spoke, her voice halting, at first. About halfway through, she got annoyed at herself. Why was she making this such a big deal? Asshole attacked her, asshole got dead. The end. She raised her head, determined.

“And then I popped a cap in his ass!” Oliver looked down at her, his eyes kind.

“Popped a cap?” His lips twitched.

“ _In his ass!”_ She repeated the words with a certain relish. Yeah, that’s right, _bitch_. “Gangsta style,” she added, making a sideways finger-gun. “Not really, though,” she said quickly. “I used it like you showed me.” Though the dry-firing hadn’t really prepared her for the gun jerking in her hand like a living thing, and all the blood. So much blood.

“Hey.” She looked up, blinking rapidly, and Oliver’s eyes were worried. “If you need to talk about it, Felicity . . . you don’t need to play it down . . . for me.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I need to play it down _for me_.” She gave him a watery smile. “I still have nightmares . . . about him.” Something occurred to her. “You were having a bad dream, I think.”

“Yeah, I – wait, you didn’t try and wake me up, did you?” Oliver grabbed her face and examined her neck. “Sometimes I react, and I don’t even know I’ve done it.”

She put her hands over his and smiled at him. “I’m fine, Oliver. I listened when you told me about instant fight or flight reflexes.”

He didn’t seem to be convinced, though, and started examining her arms for bruises.

“What were you dreaming about?” Felicity tried to keep her tone light, though she was afraid of the answer.

He avoided her eyes. “The warehouse. You were crying. I was going to kill you. It’s like I couldn’t stop myself.”

She could feel his hands shaking as they gripped her arms, and she managed to break his hold gently. She lifted his chin and deliberately looked him in the eyes.

“But you didn’t, Oliver. I’m here. I’m fine.” She smiled at him, and a corner of his mouth twitched up, then he looked away again.

“I shot you with a tranq dart.” He sounded sheepish.

“That was you? Jerk. You ruined my good suit.” She was grinning when she spoke, and he took his cue from that, and started to pull at her towel.

“I’m sorry, Felicity.” He kissed her shoulders and started moving down from there. “I hope you’re not bruised anywhere.” He kissed lower, nibbling at the curve of her breast. “Better check.”

“Oh no you don’t,” she giggled, pushing him away. “I thought you wanted to go home today.”

He answered by sweeping her up in his arms and carrying her back to the bedroom, dropping her on the bed carefully, before pulling the t-shirt over his head in a quick gesture which made her clench her thighs together. God, he made _everything_ look sexy! His eyes heated up as she blushed, and she opened her towel, lying back on her elbows.

“I guess it’s early,” she murmured, enjoying the effect she was having on him. “See anything you like?”

He crawled up the bed to kneel between her legs and carefully lowered himself on top of her, catching her mouth in a kiss that started out sweet and turned dirty fast.

“You’re still wearing pants,” she said, and he kissed her again, laughing into her mouth.

“I like that you’ve got your priorities straight,” he smirked, and yelped when she poked his side.

“I love that you can still form words,” she answered, exasperated.

He grinned at her and produced a condom from _somewhere_ , then had to roll on his back to put it on. He rolled back on top of her and she was ready for him, grabbing his cock and sliding it inside her so fast he froze.

“Felicity, be careful! I don’t want to hurt you . . .”

She just laughed and wrapped her legs around his ass, pulling him further inside, causing him to gasp and groan at the same time.

“I’ll let you in on a secret, Oliver,” she breathed in his ear. “I’m so wet for you right now – you couldn’t hurt me if you tried.” He actually whimpered, she thought, feeling _really_ smug. I made Oliver Queen whimper.

“Oh, you’re gonna get it,” he groaned, as he started thrusting.

“Bring it on, big boy!” She clenched her inner muscles around him and he laughed and gasped, pushing her knees back and changing the angle, making _her_ whimper this time.

She pulled him down for a kiss, feeling happier than she’d been in a long time, and lost herself in waves of pleasure as he moved inside her, his eyes half-closed, brow furrowed in concentration. I could get used to this, she thought, and her first orgasm took her by surprise, shuddering and trembling in his arms. She expected him to look smug, but his eyes were full of a strange emotion which she refused to examine. Instead she wrapped her legs around him and urged him on, digging her short nails into his back, enjoying the expression on his face as his hips pumped ever faster until he came. Oliver collapsed on top of her, and then rolled over, pulling her with him to lie on his chest. She felt her eyes closing, and fought it at first, but then relaxed. His mother wasn’t going anywhere. They could rest for a while.

The light was fading out of the sky as Felicity drove towards the Queen Mansion, a few hours later, Oliver at her side. She’d followed his directions, even though she could have used her GPS. But she’d realised that giving Oliver something to do might lessen his tension a bit.

Though she wasn’t really sure what he was tense about. This was his mom, and his sister – his childhood home. Did he think he wouldn’t be welcome there? Wasn’t there a saying – something about home, that when you go there they have to take you in? Who said that? Now it was going to bug her all night.

“It’s not that,” Oliver said, and she realised that at least part of her rambling train of thought had been out loud. “It’s just that – I’ve changed, Felicity. I’m not the same person. I’ve done . . . bad things.”

Felicity pulled over opposite the huge gate which she was pretty sure rivalled the White House for security.

“Oliver – she’s your mom. She never stopped hoping and praying that you weren’t dead. I’m sure of it.” She squeezed his hand, to reassure him, and he looked away, his eyes shiny.

They got out of the car, and for a moment, Felicity felt transfixed by the power and money implied by the imposing gate and the cameras slowly swivelling from side to side. She was just about to suggest Oliver should ring the doorbell, if there was a doorbell, or an intercom, or _something_ , when a harsh voice broke into her thoughts.

“You two – get away from the gate! Get in your car and keep driving!”

Oliver immediately moved in front of her, his position defensive, as two men in suits advanced on them, both holding guns. She’d heard that the Queen Mansion had all kinds of security, but this was ridiculous.

“Look, we just need to talk to-“ Oliver was keeping his voice calm, but Felicity could tell it wasn’t working.

“You don’t need anything here, pal!” The guns were still pointed at them, and Felicity’s terror grew.

“Wait a second-“ It was the bigger of the two security guys, the one who looked like he could play Muhammad Ali in a movie, who was starting to lower his gun, the expression on his face suggesting that he couldn’t believe his eyes.

“You,” he said, gesturing at Oliver, “move into the light. That face . . . I’ve seen it before. Somewhere.”

Oliver moved under one of the bright security spotlights illuminating the entrance, while the other guy looked on in disbelief.

“What the hell, Diggle? What’s wrong with you?” This man was still pointing a gun at them, and Felicity wanted to ask the same thing.

“Holy crap.” Diggle didn’t even look at his partner. “That’s Oliver Queen.”

The other man turned fully to stare at Diggle like he’d lost his mind.

“What the- are you nuts? You’ve been working for her for too long!”

Diggle shook his head. “I’ve walked past the same picture in the lobby every day for almost six years. That’s him. Older, sure. Different hair. Looks a bit . . . worse for wear.” He stared into Oliver’s eyes, and Oliver lowered them, uncomfortable with the intense scrutiny.

Felicity cleared her throat. “I’m sure Mrs Queen will recognize her son when she sees him again.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” The unnamed security guard’s tone was unpleasant. “Are you in on this, Dig? Some kind of scam?”

Diggle glared at his partner. “Only my friends call me ‘Dig’,” he said. “And Mrs Queen will decide if this is her son or not. There’s always DNA, if people need to be sure. “ He turned back to Oliver. “Do you want to come in?”

Oliver nodded, and reached out for Felicity. His face fell when she backed away. She’d already decided that he needed to do this on his own, to see if he really wanted them to be together, even when it wasn’t a crazy survival situation aftermath, with all the heightened emotions that brought out.

“Felicity?” He sounded hurt.

“You need to go to your mom, Oliver,” she said, ignoring the disbelieving snort at her side. “Then come find me. I’ll be waiting.”

Oliver looked at the gate, and Diggle, rubbing his fingers together and biting his lip. Suddenly, he advanced on her too fast for her to back away. He grabbed her face in both hands and kissed her till her ears were ringing.

“I love you. I wanted to tell you before, but I thought it could wait. I was wrong. I _love_ you.” His voice was fierce and hoarse with emotion, and she wrapped her arms round his neck, squeezing him in a hug.

Then she let him go, and whispered in his ear, a soft ‘I love _you'_ , before walking unsteadily to her car. Saying it out loud, she’d surprised herself. But it was the truth. She couldn’t hide from it any longer.

As Felicity drove back to her apartment, she had to swipe away tears, and she wasn’t sure if they meant sadness or joy. This was the second time she’d had to leave Oliver behind, trusting that he would come for her. She could only hope that this time, she wouldn’t have to wait for long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there,  
> They have to take you in.’ (Robert Frost)
> 
> David Ramsey (Diggle) actually did play Mohammad Ali in a tv movie.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry it took so long, but real world problems bla bla bla . . .
> 
> Thanks everyone for your support, comments and kudos!

Oliver could see the entire financial district from his vantage point in Tommy’s office at Merlyn Global. Even though he’d been away from Lian Yu for a year now, he still couldn’t believe that he wasn’t going to wake up one morning and find that his ‘rescue’ had been a dream. The cityscape at his feet was unimaginable, compared to the island where he’d thought he’d die.

Instead of hills, forests and cliffs, laid out before him were glittering skyscrapers festooned with huge signs – the more powerful the company, the bigger and more impressive the sign. He shook his head – maybe some of these so-called Masters of the Universe needed to spend a few months grubbing in the dirt to survive, to get a new perspective on life. It had worked for him, he thought, suppressing a rueful smile.

Oliver tried to imagine himself at the helm of Queen Consolidated and couldn’t. The very idea was ludicrous. Also, he’d just spent two weeks trying to persuade his mother of that fact. He just wasn’t sure how successful he’d been.

Oliver remembered the conversation they’d had when he’d told her he was going to see Tommy that day – Tommy and Felicity. Even though they’d talked about it, even though he’d tried to explain everything to her, she just wouldn’t listen. He had to explain. Again. That was another thing he’d learnt on the island: patience. Though even that was starting to run out.

“Mom, I told you – this isn’t for me. I have a plan. You need to let me get on with it.” Her eyes widened as he let a hint of steel show in his words.

Ever since, two weeks ago, he’d walked through the front door and his mother had enveloped him in her arms, she’d been telling him her plan for the rest of his life. Never mind that he was almost thirty, that at his age his father had been completely independent of his parents. No, he had to knuckle down to his mother because he’d lost five years.

Oliver rubbed his forehead, remembering. He almost regretted coming back, sometimes. No, that was a lie – especially when he remembered Thea running down the stairs after hearing her mother scream when she saw his face. The look in his sister’s eyes – the combination of relief, love, and yes, anger and blame – that was something he was going to have to fix, somehow. Still, he couldn’t regret not coming home after Hong Kong. If he had, he would never have met Felicity.

Walter had been there that night, of all people – Walter Steele, living in his father’s house like he owned the place. He’d just opened his mouth to ask what was going on when he’d spotted the ring his mother was wearing, matching Walter’s wedding ring.

It had been five years. His father was dead. Who was he to decide whether his mother should move on or not? He forced himself to sit down and answer the seemingly millions of questions that were coming his way, hoping the story he and Felicity had worked on was convincing enough.

Oliver had explained that he’d been picked up from the island by Chinese fishermen. He spun a tale about being disoriented after the years on Lian Yu, and only remembering that he had to get back to the U.S, but had been taken to San Francisco, not Starling City. He’d started introducing Felicity slowly, first talking about being homeless, and scrounging for food in the garbage, until a young techie took pity on him and started pretending she wasn’t hungry, giving him her lunch every day. When he saw the look on his mother’s face, he regretted making this story up – though if he’d told her what he’d really been doing, the pain would have been replaced by horror.

Or would it? In the few days he’d spent with Felicity, she’d shown him all the information she’d found out about Malcolm Merlyn, and his plans. There was something she’d been reluctant to reveal, at first. Something involving his mother. Could he really use it? Could he really blackmail his mother, if she kept trying to control his life? He cleared his throat, and looked her square in the face.

“Mom. I love you. I’ve missed you more than you can ever imagine. And I’m happy to be home, even though maybe I don’t show it enough.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she looked away. He brutally suppressed the guilt he felt and forged on.

“But I want to do this. And you would make me so happy if you could accept my plans, instead of trying to make me into something that I’m not.”

His mother looked at him, eyes flashing.

“I don’t understand how you can throw away your birth-right, the company your father built for you to head one day-“

His eye-roll interrupted her.

“Mom, come on! How can it be my birth-right? I wasn’t born to be a CEO! You’re amazing at it – how could you give it up? And when he died, that’s not what Dad wanted . . . at all.” God, he was going to be cruel to her, and he hadn’t wanted to do that.

She was clenching her fists as she looked at him. “You said that . . . that Robert . . . drowned. When the boat . . . sank.”

“I lied. And _you_ know that the Queen’s Gambit did not . . . just . . . sink.” Oliver let his quiet words have their effect, and continued when her eyes widened in understanding. “Dad told me to right his wrongs. I don’t know how, but I want to do that. And I can’t do that as some kind of financial whizz-kid – which, Mom, seriously? That’s not where my skills lie!”

He tried to break the tension, without giving away what kind of skills he had, nowadays. Looking at her face, he realised it wasn’t working. He shrugged, mentally. Hardball, then.

“I’ve seen a lawyer – someone who works for me, not the firm. If you’re going to try and have me declared incompetent, I-“

“Oliver, no!” The hurt look on his mother’s face stopped him in his tracks.

“I’m sorry,” he added, quietly. How was he going to continue, though? Saying that he knew what she was capable of wasn’t going to be very helpful. And she didn’t know what _he_ was capable of, either. He walked up to her, and surprising even himself, hugged her. He’d missed her so much, he realised. “Mom, I love you. And I want to make you proud of me. But this is something I have to do.”

He gave her one last squeeze and walked towards the motorbike which was waiting for him. When he snuck a look at his mother she looked no different than before, though he could tell that she was puzzled – she was probably asking herself what was so important about opening a night-club in the Glades, anyway. Maybe one day he’d tell her what he’d already started to build under it.

Even though he’d planned to help the city ever since his father had begged him to right his wrongs, his resolve had been strengthened a few days after his return, when he’d been asked to sign for a special delivery: Yao Fei’s trunk.

It looked out of place among the marble and oak panelling of the mansion, and he’d stared at it for a few seconds, before looking up at the delivery guy, who was shifting nervously from foot to foot. Oliver scrawled his signature in a daze, and had carried it up to his bedroom himself, not meeting his sister’s curious glance. He’d walked around it a couple of times, before kneeling in front of it, and opening it, not without a certain trepidation. There was only one person who could have retrieved it from the island.

On top of Yao Fei’s belongings lay something which he definitely didn’t expect: a flip-phone. There was only one number programmed into it. He chewed on his lip as he weighed his options. This was a message – _she_ knew where he was.

Of course she did. The day after his return, his mother had insisted on a press conference, during which he hadn’t said much, but enough to show that he wasn’t a crazed killer. He rolled his eyes. Like he even had a choice, he thought, and made the call, not at all surprised to hear Waller’s voice answering it.

“Oliver.”

Just like that, he felt his insides churn with rage. How much time had she taken from him with her ‘John Smith’ stunt? What had he ever done to deserve that? He had to lower the phone and take a couple of deep breaths to calm down, before clearing his throat, and answering her.

“Amanda.” A soft sound surprised him, and when he realised it was a laugh, infuriated him. This was funny to her?

“Oliver, please. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m just finding it hard to reconcile the fact that you seem like your old self again. I sent you the trunk as an apology.”

She was unbelievable! Did she think this was going to make up for all those lost months, all those people he’d killed?

“Just tell me _why,_ Amanda. I don’t understand – I did what you asked.” Oliver was trying hard not to sound whiny. He wasn’t sure it was working.

“It was a mistake.”

“A mista- How?” Now she was just fucking with him.

Waller sighed, and there was a moment’s silence. It was probably killing her to tell him the truth. She cleared her throat and continued.

“We knew about Reiter and his men. We had dossiers on all of them. We also had developed a drug which would theoretically be used for neutralizing hostile populations. It needed to be tested on men with certain . . . inclinations. So the strike team was instructed to dose Reiter’s right hand man. Apparently, one bearded, crew-cut white man looks much like another.”

Oliver put his hands to his forehead and almost hit himself in the face with the phone. That was _it_? She was going to blame everything on mistaken identity? He couldn’t help remembering the last moments on Lian Yu: as soon as the choppers had buzzed the camp, Reiter had started mumbling some spell, which had backfired on him. When armed men had burst into the tent, Conklin ran out, and Oliver chased after him, only to be stopped in his tracks by a dart in the neck. He tried to speak through clenched teeth.

“Felicity almost- Conklin-“ He stopped himself, though Waller would know all that by now, surely.

“Ah yes. Felicity.” Waller sounded pensive.

His fingers curled around the phone and he heard the plastic creak.

“No! You keep away from her, do you hear?” He knew he was making a mistake in showing Waller how much Felicity meant to him, but he couldn’t help it. Felicity was _his_. ARGUS couldn’t have her.

“You must admit she is extraordinarily skilled, Oliver. She’s wasted in some dreary office job, and she’d probably tell you the same, if you asked.” Waller’s tone never changed. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You almost had her killed! I almost-“

“I would have stopped you,” she interjected, interrupting him.

Oliver didn’t believe her. But the whole discussion was pointless, anyway. He bit the inside of his cheek, his thoughts racing ahead. Presenting Amanda Waller with a solid refusal was a bad idea – far better to let her think there was actually a chance of getting Felicity on her team. Even though it would _never_ happen. He was still thinking of an answer to mollify Waller, if only temporarily, when she relented.

“I don’t want us to part on bad terms, Oliver. There will come a time when I’ll need your help, and who knows,” she continued, “maybe you’ll need ARGUS too.”

Oliver bit his lip, and thought for a second. When he spoke, he felt like he was navigating a minefield.

“As long as I get advance warning,” maybe a year, or two, he thought, “I’ll take it under advisement.” There. That was pretty meaningless, right? It wasn’t an ultimatum, though. He was sure that Waller didn’t do well with those. When she continued, he could tell she was smiling.

“You do that, Oliver.” Waller hung up without saying goodbye, and he’d suddenly missed Felicity with an almost physical ache – she would have spoken long and loud about people who did that, and how weird it was.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the elevator arriving at the executive floor, immediately followed by a familiar voice.

“Look – Mr Merlyn – am I fired already? ‘Cause it’s only been a few weeks, and whatever it is, I can do better-“

Oliver rubbed his forehead, annoyed at himself – this was his fault. Why did he have to be such a fuck up? He’d wanted to surprise her, not make her worry for her job.

“Felicity, I’ve already told you to call me Tommy! And that’s not what this is about.”

They were close enough now, that Oliver saw her face change when she spotted him. She broke into a reluctant smile and burst into the office.

“Oliver! I got such a fright, you . . . you-“ She was poking at his chest with every successive ‘you’, like she couldn’t think of something sufficiently bad to call him.

Oliver ignored Tommy’s grinning face and swept Felicity in his arms, stopping her mouth with kisses. She laughed into his mouth and kissed him back.

“I missed you so much,” he murmured, wishing they were alone.

“It’s only been a few days,” she answered, her eyes shiny.

Oliver nodded, and caught Tommy’s eye. His friend looked stunned and happy for him, then his smile turned wicked.

“Never thought I’d see the day – Oliver Queen in love!” Tommy threw a set of car keys towards him and Oliver caught them out of the air. “Just like I promised, Oliver.”

Oliver grinned at him and pulled Felicity towards the elevator. She was still dazed by the kisses and came along, then stopped suddenly.

“Oliver,” she hissed, “I’m at work!”

“It’s ok, I cleared it with your boss,” he answered, ignoring a snort of laughter coming from behind him.

Felicity glared at him, narrowing her eyes, and folded her arms in front of her, refusing to move.

“How about I take the day from your PTO?” Tommy asked, and that seemed to mollify her. She walked into the elevator, giving him a suspicious look.

“What’s going on, Oliver?”

“It’s a surprise,” he murmured, advancing on her and grabbing her by the shoulders. He started kissing her again, and after a few muffled protests, she wrapped her arms around his neck and responded enthusiastically. He had her pressed up against the wall when the elevator stopped in the parking garage, one hand planted on her ass while the other slid up her thigh. She pushed him away with a muffled squeak.

“Oliver! We’re not having sex in the company elevator!” Her hair was a mess, her lipstick was smudged, she looked flushed and ruffled. She’d never looked more beautiful, and all he wanted to do was ruffle her up some more.

He smiled. “It’s Tommy’s private elevator.”

“So there’s no security camera?” she laughed in reply, and tripped out, avoiding his wandering hands. “Keep your distance, grabbyhands.” She stopped and stared at the only two cars in the parking garage, then turned and fixed him with a quizzical look. “I know _that’s_ Tommy’s Porsche – _please_ tell me that’s what you’re driving.”

Instead, Oliver looked at the battered old truck which he’d asked Tommy to get him. It was perfect. He nodded and grinned, catching Felicity’s look of horror out of the corner of his eyes. God, she was adorable.

“Stop grinning at me and tell me why you’re driving this pile of crap, Oliver.” The way she slid her arms around his neck, standing on tiptoes to kiss him, took the sting out of her words.

“Where we’re going, a fancy car would draw too much attention,” he answered. And, he thought, they’d probably find it up on blocks when they came out, if they found it at all.

Felicity kept up a sustained babble as he drove towards the site of his future club, and he let it all wash over him, happier than he’d ever felt in his life. Her words trailed off once they stopped in front of his father’s old steelworks, and he got out quickly to open the gate and drive through. He got his duffel bag out of the back, and her eyes went even wider.

Oliver climbed down carefully and helped her down into the foundry pit, then deeper into the part he’d already partly furnished. It was almost too dark to see, but when he pulled the breakers and lit up the room, she gasped.

Felicity walked slowly towards the green leather suit hanging in a corner, and then turned towards the bow and arrows which were on display close to it. She touched one of the arrows, and he bit his tongue before warning her to be careful. She walked towards the bank of computers he’d set up, looking slightly unsteady on her feet.

“What is all this, Oliver?” She waved an arm around her, encompassing the salmon ladder, practice dummy, and heavy bag he’d put in a corner well away from anything sharp or breakable.

“Remember when I told you I was trying to do some crime-fighting in Coast City when Amanda Waller caught me again? I realised I didn’t have a base of operations then, so I needed-“

“A Batcave? This is your Batcave! That’s so awesome! But these computers are terrible, Oliver, really. Don’t go shopping for tech in a thrift shop.” Before he opened his mouth to answer, she was already on her knees behind the pc towers, rerouting network cables.

This was going much faster than he’d expected.

“Don’t call it a Batcave – and I bought that stuff at Tech Village,” he protested.

“Did it come free with a bridge in Brooklyn?” She gave him a wicked look and he tried to suppress a smile.

He pulled her up. “You’re getting all dusty – and I wasn’t going to put you to work straight away.”

“Oh no?” she asked, her voice turning sultry with a speed that made his head spin. She pushed him against one of the tables. He hit it with a clang and she started to wind herself around him. He lost himself in her mouth as she rubbed her hips against his, and he moaned. “What did you bring me here for?” she asked, starting to slide her hand down the back of his jeans. Right then, he wasn’t sure himself.

“I wanted to show you around,” he answered weakly, conscious of her scent all around him, his hands full of her soft warm curves. Why hadn’t he put a bed in here? How stupid was he?

“Mr Queen?”

The voice from above their heads brought Oliver back to reality. That’s what he’d been waiting for, though he should have known that after being apart from Felicity for two weeks, he’d find it impossible to focus on anything else.

“Down here,” he called, and waited for Diggle to figure out how to get to them. Felicity looked at him curiously, and they disengaged, just in time for Diggle to climb down, much more athletically than they had done.

Diggle looked around him quizzically, taking in the hooded green suit, the bow and arrows, and the bank of computers. Felicity was looking at both of them, brow furrowed. Oliver cleared his throat, feeling nervous, all of a sudden.

“You’ve met my girlfriend, Felicity Smoak,” Oliver said, conscious of the huge smile breaking out on Felicity’s face.

“Yes, Mr Queen,” he said, shaking hands with Felicity. Ok, this had to change.

“First things first – my name is Oliver.” Diggle opened his mouth to disagree, and Oliver interrupted him. “I know you don’t work for my mother anymore, so there’s no reason to pretend you do.”

Diggle closed his mouth.

“Why am I here, then? Mr- Oliver, I mean.”

“I’ve done my research about you, Mr Diggle.”

“Just Diggle, man. And what research would that be?”

Diggle crossed his enormous arms, and Oliver swallowed, noticing that Felicity gave him a nervous look.

“I know that you were in the army, and you’ve spent years in private security, working for other people. I know that you’ve been trying to open your own private security firm, but you keep applying for loans and keep getting turned down. I know I need someone like you to help me with what I’ve got planned.”

Diggle raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Oliver went on.

“This city is dying. It’s being destroyed by corruption and crime. I know you’ve noticed – you couldn’t live here and not notice.”

“That’s what the police are for,” Diggle answered, the scepticism heavy in his tone.

“They can’t cope, Diggle. They’re restricted by laws – we wouldn’t be. We can save this city, together.” Oliver tried to inject enough feeling into his words to make them convincing. Later he’d tell Diggle about his father’s notebook, though he was starting to suspect that time had made it redundant. Still, there was enough crime and corruption in Starling City that needed handling, and they were the ones to do it.

“Like Batman! And Robin, I guess. Though who does that make me? Catwoman? I’m scared of heights. Maybe Poison Ivy? Batgirl?” Felicity’s happy babble managed to defuse a lot of the tension which was starting to build in the room. Then Diggle broke it completely, with a laugh, and a shake of his head.

“No way I’m gonna be Robin,” Diggle snorted.

“I’m not Batman!” Oliver protested.

They spoke at the same time, and exchanged a grin. But then Diggle shook his head again.

“Look, man. I appreciate the offer, but I gotta earn a living. And if I even considered doing something like this, I would never, _ever_ , take a salary from you for doing it.”

Oliver opened his mouth to disagree, and this time Diggle interrupted him.

“No superhero or sidekick ever got paid for helping people.”

Felicity giggled and Oliver shot her a hurt look. “Sorry, sorry – just remembered a Buffy joke.”

He rubbed his forehead, stalling for time. He knew the solution to this – had in fact planned for it. He just didn’t know if Diggle would accept it.

“Your private security firm – I can make it happen.”

Diggle’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not taking your money, Oliver.”

“Borrowing, Diggle. To be repaid.”

“With interest,” Diggle answered.

“With interest,” Oliver agreed. “The accountants will work the whole thing out, and you’ll be private security guy by day, my partner by night.”

Diggle wasn’t sold on it yet, Oliver could tell. He fixed Oliver with a stern look.

“I can get over breaking a few laws here and there – but no killing.” In that moment, Diggle looked like a man who’d done enough killing to last him many lifetimes. Oliver knew what that felt like. He nodded. He never wanted to kill anyone ever again.

“No killing,” he said out loud. He glanced to the side, where Felicity was pouting slightly.

“What about me? If Diggle is your partner, I’m what? A sidekick? The I.T. girl?”

Oliver grabbed her and crushed her in his arms while she squeaked.

“You’re my partner too – we’re a team.” She beamed, and he lost himself in her eyes.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Diggle wander off and give the green leather suit a sceptical look.

Oliver managed to restrain himself and only kissed Felicity once, before pulling her towards the rest of the equipment, eager to show off.

“So, an archer, huh?” Diggle had arrived at the bow and arrows. “Is that what you’re going to call yourself? Archer?”

Oliver frowned. “Huh?”

“You gotta have a name,” Felicity added, nodding at Diggle. You two are gonna get along just fine, Oliver thought.

Felicity let go of his hand and went up to Diggle.

“Can I show you the computers he set up, um, Diggle? They’ll all need to be upgraded, of course.”

Diggle nodded. “My friends call me Digg,” he offered, and Oliver grinned. He put his hands in his pockets and leaned back on his heels, looking at the place above his head where his nightclub would be.

It was all coming together, everything he’d planned whenever he’d had time to think, whether it was on Lian Yu or in Hong Kong. Later on, he’d show Diggle the medical equipment he’d sourced, and tell both of them about his plans for the night-club. It was strange that he knew exactly what to call the club, but not what kind of code name to choose for himself. But it would come to him, he was sure of that.

For the first time in many years, he let himself relax. He was home, finally. As he watched Felicity explain something to Diggle, her hands flailing about in enthusiasm, he allowed himself a smile. Felicity caught his eye, and she waved him over, impatiently.

“Come on, Oliver! I’ve got some monitoring programs running, and I’m connecting with the police network! Ok, fine. I’m a hacker. I’m hacking into the police network.”

Diggle stared at her, obviously trying and failing to suppress a smile, and Oliver could only share the feeling as he walked over. She was oblivious, her eyes fixed to the screen, her fingers flying over the keys as she muttered to herself, then bit her lip and nodded, punching the air.

“Yes! We’re in!” She grinned at them, her eyes sparkling with glee. “You know, I always wanted to say this!”

Oliver raised an eyebrow. “Say what?”

Felicity cracked her knuckles, squared her shoulders and focused on the screen. She couldn’t resist a little smile, though, aimed at both of them.

“Let’s go to work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's over! 
> 
> A bit sad - maybe that's why it took me so long, I didn't want it to end!
> 
> Hope everyone likes the ending.


End file.
